Endurance Test 2
by mizu aozora
Summary: Lucy participates in her second test of endurance since entering Fairy Tail and gets caught up in something way bigger than she intended. Will she be able to solve this on her own? I do not own Fairy Tail, nor do I wish to. It wouldn't be the same...
1. Trivia?

Disclaimer: Okay… I don't own FairyTail in any way, shape, or form nor do I wish to. I gladly leave that in the hands of Mashima, whom—in my opinion—is doing a fantabulous job. ^_^

Lucy placed her chin in the crook her arms which lay crossed atop the cool surface of one of the many tables in Fairy Tail and sighed. The guild was full of the usual antics: Natsu and Gray throwing fists and subconsciously destroying everything in their path; Elfman announcing very loudly, how manly fighting is; Cana chugging barrel after barrel of liquor while chastising Gray about his unfortunate stripping habit; Freed drooling over "how awesome Laxus is", you know, _that_ usual. And as per _usual_ , Lucy was sitting there at the table spectating the entire thing with glazed eyes. Lucky for Natsu and Gray, Erza was nowhere to be seen.

Then suddenly, as if reading her mind, Erza, along with Master Makarov, came strolling up on to the stage looking mildly smug. Well master Makarov that is. Erza on the other hand shot Gray and Natsu a death glare putting an immediate halt to their brawl.

"My children as you all know", Makarov began, listening as conversations faded into silence "The time has come for our annual Fairy Tail Guild Endurance Test!" Cheers and over dramatic sighs erupted from the guild members.

"Like all the years we've ever done this, all members must participate or face the punishment along with the loser of this contest!" He stared the crowd down waiting for any objections, none came.

"Alrighty then, I take this silence as your agreement so let's get this thing started!...Oh! And I forgot to add, this test you can navigate partners, anybody you choose, so you may end up with several different partners throughout the duration of this test." he clarified.

"Wait, _activities?_ " Cana spoke irritatedly from her seat at the bar. "As in more than one endurance test? Why all the extra stuff? We usually only have one task like a race or something!"

"Because it's much more challenging this way." Erza answered nonchalantly, Makarov nodding his head in agreement.

"Any more complaints?"

Lucy sighed again. They were just trying to keep everyone busy so the guild wouldn't get destroyed every twenty seconds by Natsu's ceaseless fighting. Although she couldn't stop the excited racing of her heart.

After ushering everyone out the door-evidently, no one wanted to face the punishment that awaited at the end of the test-Makarov led the entire guild to where the first activity was set up. In the center of a clearing, was a long stage strung with tons of flashy lights and ribbon. On the stage, wooden podiums wide enough to fit two people were lined up all the way to the edge, each equipped with a little red buzzer. Another taller podium was placed off to the side, without a buzzer, most likely for whomever would be hosting the activity. Just by looking at the set-up Lucy already knew what game they were about to play.

"Trivia?" She said to no one in particular. Makarov nodded enthusiastically.

"Yep. Endurance of the brain. And everyone _has_ to participate!" He announced sternly glaring at a deflated Natsu. Knowledge not being one of his top characteristics, Lucy felt a bit bad for him. Okay, maybe a lot. But regardless of her sympathy, she still approached Levy before anyone else could.

"Of course I'll be your partner Lu-chan!" She exclaimed linking her arm through Lucy's before she had a chance to even get the question out. "You're the smartest girl here besides myself! And I refuse to end up getting whatever punishment the Master has laid out." She added shivering. Lucy nodded.

" Uhn! I think we have this one in the bag!"

Almost immediately the crowd began shuffling, everyone searching for a partner that would at least win them a few questions. After everyone had their team ready they filed onto the stage and into the podiums where they anxiously waited for Master Makarov to prepare the questions.

"I'm all fired up!" Natsu yelled into the tense silence in an attempt to motivate himself. It failed.

Clearing his throat, Makarov read out the first question. "Okay, question one: What is Natsu's favorite food?"

"Oh, that one's easy!" Natsu and Lucy shouted at the same time, but unfortunately for Natsu who had forgotten the rules, Lucy actually hit the button. He'd forgotten about that part.

"Fire." Lucy answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Correct! That's a point for team one!" Makarov declared.

"Next question: What is the name of the current princess of Fiore?" Levy smacked the button with lightning speed.

"That would be Princess Hisui."

"Correct! Another point for team one!"

"What's 3,763 minus 54?"

"3,709!" Shouted Lucy.

"Correct! Point!"

"How many species of lizards are there?"

"Around 5,000!" Gray shouted after slamming his button so hard it almost broke.

"What? I read it in a magazine once."

"Correct! Point!"

"How many dragon slayers are there total?"

"Seven!" Natsu hollered after his teammate remembered to hit the button for him.

"Correct! Point!"

The game progressed like that until Lucy and Levy won with a total of fifty-two points.

"How'd you even know how many books were published in the last year?" Lucy inquired as she and Levy walked off the stage and awaited further directions.

"Well I kept tabs on all of them to see if there were any potential buys, I needed to add some new books to my shelves, you know? Last year I got twelve more books! It was a good year for me!"

Lucy beamed seeing her friend gush over her new books.

"Oh! I just so happened to find this really good romance book that you would love, and seeing how much of a hopeless romantic you are, I thought I'd let you take a look at it. It will have to be later though because I don't have it with me now." She explained sounding a bit disappointed.

Lucy would hold her to her word, but for now she needed to stay as far away from romantic novels as possible. Lately she'd been misinterpreting a lot of situations with Natsu due to her over-active imagination. She couldn't handle the embarrassment any more. She put her own novel on hold because of it.

Looking up at the fluffy white clouds in the sky, she allowed herself to ponder over what the next challenge might be. Hopefully today wouldn't be too long.


	2. Another Race?

Lucy looked at the bright white banner above her with the words Start/Finish painted in gigantic black letters and slumped her shoulders. _Another race? Didn't they have one the first time she participated in this test?_

The race seemed to take place in a mountainous region _again;_ the entire track as far as the eye could see was simply rocks, hills, and more steep hills. A little ways down the path you could see the track winding up an either extremely large hill or a small mountain; honestly it was difficult to distinguish the two. Enchantments were placed a few meters away on either side of the track so that no one could get lost or stray too far off course.

Lucy watched as Makarov turned to face the group then suck in a large breath.

"This race is very much similar to the race we had several years ago except this time you're bringing back flags. There are seven different colors of flags:pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple; each with a different point value, decreasing in order of color, so pink flags are worth seven; red flags are worth six and so on like that." He paused to let all the information sink in before moving on.

"There are six of each color of flag with the exception of pink, which only has three and blue which has nine, so first come first served." This seemed to instantaneously amp everyone's competitiveness. The situation had turned from people zoning out to everyone becoming all eyes and ears. A smile tugged at the Master's lips.

"You are to bring back the flag color of your choice and stick it on the red line painted below the banner." He finished crossing his arms over his chest. All eyes shifted to the ground.

"Despite being paired, **both** members have to have their own flag, and what place you come in does matter. The first twelve to pass the finish line will receive extra points. Now everybody line up at the starting line with your partner!"

Lucy swung around to see who she could claim as a partner at the same time a very warm hand grabbed her wrist. She looked up to see Natsu's boyish grin.

"Hey Luce." he greeted, steadily dragging her through the crowd so that they could line up at the red line. "You're gonna be my partner this round!"

He said it in a manner that didn't really give her the option to decline-not like she wanted to anyways. If the boy with the most stamina in this contest wanted her to be his partner, who was she to say no? It bettered her chance of winning anyways!

Because his canines are ridiculously sharp, when Natsu said her name it came out sounding like ' _Loosh'_ instead of _'Loose'_ , which made her smile like a big idiot. But it was okay since she had another big idiot smiling right next to her.

Once everyone had gotten into position, Makarov signaled the GO! and Natsu took off like a bullet, dragging Lucy along behind him. He used his free arm as a booster like he had during the last test causing their speed to increase slightly.

After the first ten minutes of running and charging uphill, Lucy could feel her legs _and_ her lungs burning. She would never quite understand how Natsu could keep up with this pace, the boy was completely suicidal! Did he want to break her legs off or something?!

Natsu seemed to notice her struggling because he slowed down a bit to match her pace.

"You okay, Luce?" he inquired taking in her sweat-drenched bangs, red face, and heavy panting. "You're slowing down."

"I didn't... notice." She replied dryly.

The ground began to form a slope and Lucy knew they were beginning the trek up the small mountain/giant hill. She cursed the terrain in her head because she didn't have enough energy to complain aloud.

Then her eyes flicked in the direction of yelling behind them.

Approaching from behind were Elfman, Max, and Nab all fighting to pass the other. The three of them were making so much noise that it made concentrating on running almost impossible. Of course there was ample amount of space for them to just pass each other and keep running along, but since they were all knuckleheaded idiots they were using their magic to disable each other so that they wouldn't have any competition in the long haul. Lucy's eyes dilated into tiny, mischievous slits. Well she had something for all of them.

Releasing Natsu's hand, Lucy hastily rummaged through her key pouch pulling out one of her golden gate keys and summoned a spirit, who just so happened to be Virgo. Taking in their surroundings, Virgo immediately started running beside her while Lucy cheered in her mind at her amazing luck.

"Yes princess?"She asked with her usual vacant eyes.

Lucy stopped cheering and pulled her thoughts together.

"I need you to go crazy and dig as many holes as you can." She commanded gesturing wildly to the bickering idiots behind her.

Heehee. They would never suspect a thing.

Virgo's eyes lit up in understanding and she slowed to a stop quickly drilling into the ground.

A few seconds later you could her the yells of Elfman, Max, and Jet as they fell into one of Virgo's holes...And fell...And fell...And fell.

 _Jeez. How deep did she dig those holes?_ Lucy wondered still waiting for the screaming to stop. Ahead of her Natsu shot back a thumbs up.

"Good thinking, Luce!" he praised, not even once looking behind him.

"Would you like to punish me now, princess?" Virgo asked when she returned. Lucy shot her a quizzical look then shook her head.

"No, that was fine Virgo. You can return now."

She watched as Virgo disappeared into her key.

Jet was somewhere way in front like he always was during foot races. Wherever his partner was she felt sympathetic.

Looking ahead, Lucy could tell that Natsu wanted to catch up but she was slowing him down even though there were still gonna be four pink flags left for them to take. She was about to tell him to run on ahead when she saw rainbow of flags blowing in the wind.

"Oi, Natsu look! We're almost there!" she shouted feeling her spirit rise... That is, until she heard the commotion behind her.

It looked like the rest of the guild was pulling through too. Happy and Carla were in front of the mass of running bodies hugging each other tightly and crying for dear life as Erza, Gray, and Gajeel fought it out directly behind them.

Freed and Bixlow were behind them; Levy, Evergreen, Elfman, Mira, and Vjeeter even farther behind.

Levy used her solid script magic to create explosives that flew out all over the place knocking out a few runners in the process. Taking the cue, Bixlow commanded his dolls to take Baryon formation and shot a beam towards the racers at the front of the crowd. However, the beam went slightly farther and Lucy shrieked as she jumped out of the way right before the beam exploded the ground next to her.

Sweat-dropping, Lucy pushed herself off the ground and started running again. Some more projectiles came flying past her, no doubt Levy's doing, and a sword nicked her cheek.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Lucy hollered pumping her legs harder. These people were insane! They were really trying to kill each other!

"ICE MAKE, FLOOR!" Gray shouted from somewhere within the crowd.

Suddenly instead of going forward, Lucy could feel herself slipping backwards. And the slope of the hill was not helping. Grabbing onto a jagged boulder for dear life, Lucy screamed at Natsu to heat up the ground.

He was long ahead of her, but must have heard because soon, water came tumbling down the course where he had previously been.

After the ice under Lucy melted, she began running again, hoping to get as far away as possible before magic started flying again. But her luck had run out for the day. Right as she neared the flags, the guild members seemed to get a burst of energy from nowhere and came charging up the hill. Lucy was swept up in the current of people. Her leg tangled with someone else's legs, causing her and the other person to go crashing to the ground. The other guild members began tripping over them and everyone went down like dominoes. By the time they arrived at the flags, everyone was heaped on top of each other in a large pile.

Lucy wormed her way from underneath Cana's beer-heavy body and brushed the dirt off her clothes. Her leg was throbbing with pain, but she ran for the last pink flag like her life depended on it. As her fingers brushed the smooth fabric it was swept from her grasp by none other than Gajeel, who flicked her head before taking off down the small mountain/large hill. Fuming, Lucy grabbed the next highest-ranking flag; red, and began her own decent down the hill.

After making it down the hill/mountain and to the final stretch, Lucy collapsed on her knees panting and sweating bullets. Her aching leg was preventing her from getting back up, the pain twice as worse now than it had originally been; Lucy was considering lopping it off right then and there. Several racers passed her, even Erza who seemed pained about doing it, but Lucy understood: a race was a race.

Hanging her head in defeat, Lucy tried to stand up one last time, but fell back down with a yelp when the added pressure on her legs caused a ripple of pain to shoot up her muscles.

Natsu was going to be so crestfallen if he didn't get any extra points. Lucy could feel the tears coming when a hand snaked around her waist hoisting her a couple of feet off the ground. A pink flag popped popped in front of her face.

"Hold this will ya?" Natsu said as he hoisted her onto his shoulders.

Surprised, Lucy took the flag from him with her free hand and hooked her feet under his arms. They were warm against her thighs. Focusing her attention forward, Lucy noticed that her vision was no longer blurry.

"Hold on tight. I'm gonna need my hands to make boosters." Natsu warned before rocketing towards the finish line, flames shooting out behind him.

As Natsu ran, Lucy leaned forward a bit to get a look at his face; his expression was serious.

Guilt settling back in her system, Lucy decided to make up for holding Natsu back. So, as Natsu approached the other racers Lucy used her whip to wrap their ankles and trip them up. Natsu laughed hysterically as she did it, saying that ' _the look on their faces was hilarious_ ' and her heart soared at the fact that he wasn't angry with her.

They crossed the finish line in fifth place, but still, Natsu wasn't mad, explaining that ' _even if it were a race, he'd never leave his nakama behind_ ', then proceeding to hover over Lucy as Wendy, who finished in eleventh place, treated her leg.

Gray and Erza, who had passed the finish line ahead of them were there too; Natsu clashing fists with Gray because Lucy's injury was apparently ' _his fault_ '.

"What'd you say to me Flame Breath!?" Gray demanded a vain popping out on his head.

"You heard me Popsicle!" Natsu retorted pushing his head even harder against Gray's.

"I _said,_ if it weren't for your stupid ice floor thingy, Lucy would have never gotten caught up in your guy's crossfire."

"Well you-" Gray began, but Lucy cut him off.

"Would you two cut it out." she sighed taking a sip of water provided by the Master. "It's no one's fault and everyone's fault at the same time. And Natsu, I'm fine now, so it doesn't matter! Quit picking fights!"

Natsu grumbled his discontent but obeyed anyways, plopping down on the ground next to Lucy. He leaned against her back ever-so-slightly, ignoring Happy's taunts and jabs about how him and Lucy ' _liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike each other_ '.

Natsu and Lucy scoffed.

"Shut up cat!" they growled simultaneously.

* * *

 **Hope you guys enjoyed the second chap. I never mentioned this but, this is my first fanfic, so I'm still learning the ropes.**

 **My thanks goes out to my best friend in the entire universe, beevaleria, who helped me figure out how to create the story in the first place-lemme tell you, _THAT_** **was the struggle.**

 **Please check out her story called Water. It's a Gruvia fanfic, so if you ship those two as hardcore as she does, then that's your story. Feel free to comment, I'm always open to suggestions, and readers for that matter -_-, not gettin' too much traffic here.**

 **That's about all I have to say, so yeah...**

 **Ja ne! ^_^**


	3. Into the Maze with Gray?

This time, the Master lead them to some weird spot in the underside of yet _another_ mountain. And this time Lucy knew _for sure_ that it was a mountain.  
Tall bushes surrounded them on all sides which gave the entire area a secluded vibe. Everyone's eyes fell on the master and you could see the confusion reflected in every pair of them.

Hopping up onto a conveniently placed rock, the master cleared his throat for the third time that day.

"For this challenge, you will be walking through a maze. There's no object you need to retrieve in this challenge, you just walk in and find your way out. As I explained before, the place you come in does count and groups that finish this maze within an hour will receive extra points. When everyone has located their partners for this round we will begin."

Lucy glared at the opening. There had to be something the master wasn't telling them. Otherwise, why would they be allotted such a lengthy time period to complete a course? An ominous feeling settled itself in the pit of her stomach.

"Hey Luce!" Natsu piped popping up next to her.

Lucy nearly jumped out of her skin, but instead settled for whacking Natsu upside the head.

"DON'T JUST POP UP ON PEOPLE LIKE THAT WHILE THEY'RE IN DEEP THOUGHT, YOU IDIOT!" she yelled causing a few pairs of eyes to shift their way.

Natsu on the other hand, didn't even flinch at the tone of her voice.

"Well, I just came to tell you that me and happy are gonna be together this match." he said scratching the back of his head.

"That's great." Lucy responded slowly, hitching her voice up at the end of the phrase so that it came out sounding like a question. She didn't understand why he had to come to tell her this, but she shrugged it off as one of the weird habits he'd picked up as of lately.

Just then, Gray strolled into their tiny group chat, shirtless, as always, with his hands tucked in his pants pockets.

Right as he came up to them, Lucy felt a harsh chill at the back of her neck, the kind she got when she was being watched. She looked around her to see if anyone was staring, but everyone was engaged in their own, private conversations. Lucy shrunk into herself a bit and stepped closer to Natsu.

"So I'm guessin' you've got your partners all figured out?" he stated simply attempting to make small talk.  
Natsu stared at him blankly and Lucy shrugged.

"Nah, Luce doesn't have a partner yet and I just came to tell her that I'm with Happy." Natsu spoke absentmindedly, his gaze somewhere behind Gray.

Gray's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Well in that case, you're gonna be my partner Lucy." he quipped grabbing her by the elbow gently. "I swear, if I have to deal with Juvia for one more minute I'm going to freeze myself."

Natsu gave Gray a dangerously sharp look, but apparently Gray didn't notice because he began pulling Lucy toward the entrance of the maze.

"Good luck, Natsu!" Lucy called over her shoulder to Natsu who was staring after her as Gray continued to pull her through the crowd.

* * *

Gray and Lucy walked side-by-side through the wide entrance of the so-called "maze". It looked like a giant cave to her. Nothing she hasn't seen before.

Water ran along the ground beside them, coloring the cave walls, ceiling, and floor a beautiful turquoise color. The rippling pattern of the water was also reflected onto the walls also giving the whole room a 'submerged in water' type feel. It was actually quite relaxing.

There were other guild members in there too, chattering lightly and pointing out some things that they saw within the water. New openings were scattered all throughout the cave leading to different areas or dead ends, so as Lucy and Gray walked along, they found the group getting smaller and smaller until it was just the two of them walking along in a comfortable silence.

Every so often, Gray would poke his head into one of the openings and decide if he wanted to go in or not. Lucy was positive he was traveling at random and that by now they were surely lost, but she kept on trailing behind, giving advice on which direction they should go every now and then.

"Didn't we already walk through here?" Gray mumbled, stopping inside a large cavern filled with colorful gems. The gems lit up the entire space giving Lucy a great idea. Walking over to a rock which had several large gems protruding from its surface, Lucy took out another golden key, this time summoning Taurus.

"Niiice booody as always Mrs. Loocy!" he complimented with little hearts in his eyes.

Lucy ignored him and pointed to the gems. "Mind breaking one of those off for me?" she asked with as much politeness as she could muster at this point. All this aimless wandering was beginning to grind on her last nerve.

Taurus swung the axe down with all his might managing to break two fist-sized pieces of gem off the rock.

Gray watched with mild amusement as Lucy dusted off each rock with the hem of her shirt then threw him one. Both rocks were a shiny blue.

"We can use them as lights." she explained when Gray looked down at the gem, then back up at her with a confused expression.  
He nodded his head once in understanding and kept moving.

* * *

About twenty-six minutes into their directionless wandering, Lucy and Gray finally came to a room that looked different than the others. This one was a lot hotter considering the entire floor was lava except for a rigid line of molten lava stepping platforms that led to the opposite side of the room.

Taking Lucy by the wrist, Gray approached the first platform and tapped his foot against it lightly. The surface was nice and hard, but the disk sunk into the lava a bit.

"Be careful Lucy." he warned. 'Only one person can stand on these at a time, so stay directly behind me. When I move a step, you move a step, got it?"

Lucy nodded a yes, then realized that he couldn't see it.

"Uhn!" she said to his back.

Just as he said he would, Gray tested out each step before jumping forward; Lucy jumped directly onto the platform he'd just jumped off of until they were in the center of the room, halfway to their destination.

By now, Lucy was sweating buckets. Glancing up at Gray, who seemed to be doing just fine, Lucy couldn't help but feel a bit envious of his magic.

She stepped onto the next molten platform and released a small shout when it rocked underneath her. The force of the jolt ripped her hand from Gray's, which left Lucy to struggle on her own.

To regain her balance, she pinwheeled her arms frantically, sighing in relief when the platform finally stopped rocking. Relief was visibly etched on Gray's face as well. They exchanged brief nods before preparing to move on to the next platform.

Then, without warning, the lava started to flow.

The molten platforms jerked again and began slowly moving with the flow of the current. In order not to fall off the stone this time, Lucy crouched down and clung to the edge of the rock. Not even forty feet away from her a geyser of lava shot up from the ground. Apparently, one shot off near Gray too because she heard a breathy ' _shit_ ' come from him as he scooted closer to the edge of his platform.

Releasing a small, determined breath, Lucy looked around for the next stone to jump on, but they were all moving to quickly. She tried calming herself with more deep breaths, but when another geyser shot up through the ground, this time only thirty feet away, Lucy heard her heart begin to pound out an unsteady rhythm in her head. She tried forcing her legs to stand, but they were glued to the rock.

"Come on body, don't fail me now." she whispered to herself, still searching for another chance to jump.

"Lucy, jump over there!" Gray shouted, pointing to a stepping stone that was rapidly moving her way.

At the same time, another geyser of lava, ten feet closer, shot up into the air causing her to flinch. A few sprinkles of molten rock pelted her from above.

As the platform neared her, Lucy stood on her legs, bending slightly to prepare for the jump. Ahead of her, Gray pounced on his own platform.

"You can do it Lucy!" he cheered from his position on the platform; from what Lucy saw he'd barely managed to make it on there alive.

Feeling her determination rise, Lucy took the leap, grunting as her chest landed heavily on the platform's hard surface. The air was forced from her body for a moment; Lucy used the time to drag her feet all the way on the rock, she didn't like them hovering over the lava like that.

Sucking in as much air as she could before she had to move on, Lucy waited for the next platform to arrive. She was suddenly very grateful of the fact that she'd decided to wear her long boots today, instead of heels.

When the two finally made it across the lava pool, they slumped to the ground panting.

"I feel so sleepy right now." Lucy stated out of the blue, her eyelids weighing heavily against her face.

Gray frowned at that statement, then slapped his hand against her head and used his magic to begin cooling her face down.

"That's not a good thing. You're overheating. Oi! Lucy! Listen to me! You can't go to sleep!" he yelled.

Lucy blinked and sat up. "Yeah, I know. I know okay? Just...stop yelling, it's hurting my head."

Pushing himself to his feet, Gray stood and offered his hand to Lucy, which she gladly used to pull herself up.

Digging into her key pouch, she pulled out a silver key and summoned Horologium, who greeted them in his usual happy way.

After patiently waiting for him to finish up his greeting, Lucy spoke up.

"Would you mind telling us how long it's been since we've entered this maze?" she inquired placing her hand to her chin. It would be much more helpful if they knew how much time they had left in the match.

"About thirty-seven minutes." Horologium answered simply taking in both Lucy and Gray's shocked expressions.

"We spent an entire twelve minutes trying to make our way out of this room!" They yelled in unison, their jaws almost dropping to the floor.

Shaking off her momentary shock, Lucy held up her key dejectedly allowing Horologium to return to the spirit world.

"We have _got_ to get moving." she spoke into the silence.

* * *

 **Sorry this chap. was a bit boring guys. I was gonna keep going but realized that if I did, that it would be  
a really long chapter, so I decided to split it into two parts. I would have updated earlier, but my sister and brother confiscated the computer to fill out job applications... The struggle.  
**

 **Thanks to all of you out there who took the time to read my story, I really appreciate it. I just wish you would leave me some reviews,  
it's killing me to not know what you guys think. :( The next chap. will include lots more crazy events and a little Gray-Lucy  
humor. So please stay tuned!**

 **~ Ja ne! ^_^**


	4. Into the Maze with Gray? (continued)

After leaving the lava room behind, Gray and Lucy decided to formulate a route to get through the maze. Tapping her fingers against her lips, Lucy thought about the direction they'd taken so far. Most of it had been random turns and intuitive guesses, so for all she knew they could have just moved in one ginormous circle.

"Is there even a trick to getting out of a maze?" Gray wondered aloud, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Lucy thought about it. "Actually there is!" she said, eyes lighting up with hope. "I remember reading about it in a novel once. It said that the trick to getting through mazes was sticking to the right side of the wall."

Gray looked a bit doubtful, but decided to go with the idea.

Standing up, he positioned his body to the west, then the east and sweat dropped.

"Uh, which direction do we go?" he questioned scratching the back of his head.

Again, Lucy's mind clicked into motion.

"Oh!" she piped reaching into her pouch and pulling out two silver keys. Setting one aside, she thrust the other key into the air and turned it, summoning Pyxis, the half-compass-half-bird celestial spirit, directly in front of them. Gray remembered it from the time she'd summoned him unnecessarily during the pre-elimination round of the Grand Magic Games.

"Okay, Pyxis!" she shouted enthusiastically. "Which direction is out!"

The spirit, obviously influenced by Lucy's enthusiasm, activated the compass on the top of it's head, pointing a wing east when the dial finally stopped spinning.

Crouching down to the spirit's level, Lucy gave him a bright smile. "Thanks, Pyxis!" she said holding out his key in front of herself.

Pyxis returned to the spirit world, leaving a trail of glittering light in his wake. Once he'd disappeared, Lucy activated the other key. This time, a familiar Plue appeared, waving a shaky hand in greeting. Lucy immediately picked him up, hugging him against her chest and started walking in the direction Pyxis had just pointed out.

"What do we need him for?" Gray asked out of pure curiosity.

"I just felt like having him here." Lucy responded her tone suggesting that he should already know this.

Keeping to the right side of the wall as they planned, Lucy and Gray came upon a pitch black hallway that seemed highly suspicious. Taking notice of the bright blue glow coming from his pants, Gray pulled the gem that Lucy had given him out of his pocket and held it in front of himself to test its luminescence. Instantly, about one yard of the dark hall instantly lit up in a bright blue hue. Because the light the gem emitted was blue it made silhouettes that were towards the edge of the light a bit more difficult to make out.

Lucy had Plue hold her own gem, making the hall a little brighter, but not by much.

"It looks like we would need a lot more of these gems to get the same result as the cavern we saw back there." Lucy stated staring down diappointedly at the gem Plue was holding.

He gave her an agreeing 'Pun!'

As they continued walking, Lucy began to notice a rumbling beneath her feet. She paused in the middle of the hall and looked behind her. The rumbling under her feet was steadily growing more violent and now she could even hear something coming around the bend.

Gray came to an abrupt stop a few feet ahead of her and whipped around too.

"What in the world is that?!" he complained, eyes widening as he was faced with a enormous boulder rolling their way.

"I KNEW IT!" Lucy screamed as she turned and hauled tail, her hair whipping about behind her. "I KNEW THIS MAZE WAS BOOBY TRAPPED FROM THE BEGINNING! THERE'S NO WAY THE MASTER WOULD JUST LET US PEACEFULLY SLIDE BY!"

Gray waited till Lucy passed him and began running behind her.

"That damn geezer." he muttered running up beside Lucy. "He could at least given us a heads up."

The hall seemed to stretch out forever and Lucy was growing more and more tired by the minute.

Just when she felt like she was going to faint from exhaustion the floor dropped from under them.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Lucy screamed as she landed on an extremely wet, hard surface.

Gray landed right behind her with a grunt and they began to slide down with ridiculous speed, both Lucy and Gray screaming their heads off.

"REALLY! A WATER SLIDE!" Lucy wailed as she and Gray were thrown into five sequential spiraling loops. At the end of the fifth loop, Gray looked about ready to puke which made Lucy wail even more.

Suddenly Plue shouted out and lifted the gem Lucy had made him hold high above his head pointing out a series of weapons hanging above the slide. When Lucy and Gray were directly under them, the weapons began to fall; first arrows and spears rained from above which Gray blocked with an ice shield, then three axes randomly snapped off the strings holding them in place and began to swing wildly above their heads.

Lucy flattened herself against the slide as much as possible, Gray following suit, and passed under them with ease, save her shirt which got ripped in the process.

"Sometimes having a big chest is a burden." Gray stated from above her, putting his hands into position to 'ice make' another defensive weapon.

The next thing to appear were the regular cliche saw blades, which Lucy and Gray had to twist their bodies in weird positions to avoid.

"Who puts this kind of stuff on a water slide anyways!" Lucy whined after her skirt was ripped by one of the blades for the fourth time.

"The real question is how the hell long this water slide is?" Gray deadpanned.

As he said that, Lucy began to squirm below him then erupted in a full out panic, kicking her legs into the air and screaming for Gray to cool down the water. Of course he'd noticed that it'd gotten a little warmer, but it was nothing to flip out about. But when the slide finally ended and they were tossed onto the ground on their backs Gray realized that the water must have been a lot hotter than he'd initially assumed.

Sitting up, he got a full view of Lucy's upper back from her tank-top. Her entire back was a bright red color and you could actually _see_ the steam from the water wafting from her skin.

Lucy pressed her finger to the red area lightly, then let out a loud hiss, reflexively drawing her finger back as if someone had slapped it.

"You know what?" she voiced dolefully as she struggled to stand due to her water burn. "I officially hate this test. And I'd rather go through whatever punishment Master has at the end of this trial than to go through one of those," she pointed to the water slide "again!"

Gray gave her a sympathetic slap on the shoulder, immediately apologizing when Lucy hissed aloud shot him a death glare, then turned serious.

"No, you wouldn't, and as a partner I won't allow you to receive that punishment either." he said with determination. A fox smile slipped its way onto his face. "No matter how much you may beg for it."

Lucy stared at him until he was uncomfortable.

"Don't ever make that face again." she said before walking away. Gray sweat dropped.

Lucy didn't get very far before her foot hit a button embedded in the ground. She froze. A loud crumbling noise sounded behind them. Gray looked down at the ground behind him and visibly paled.

"Lucy, run!" he commanded grabbing her by the wrist and taking off like a jet.

Once Lucy gained momentum, he let go and glanced behind them. As he'd thought, the ground was falling behind them at a breakneck pace.

"Seriously!" Lucy wailed, once again tears shooting out from the corners of her eyes. "What is up with these cliched traps!" Plue ' _pun'_ ed in agreement.

"They're even activated through cliched methods." Gray added.

The floor started falling apart even faster and Gray could tell that they weren't going to make it. Putting his hand into position he used his ice make magic to create a floor under their feet at the same time the floor beneath them tumbled away.

Lucy tripped, due to the momentary switch, but regained her balance, slowing as she realized that the floor was no longer breaking away.

Looking down at he ground she sighed in relief.

"Ah, nice save!" she said turning to face Gray, who then shot her a quick thumbs up.

* * *

Lucy, Plue, and Gray were now all walking through a large cavern with large icicle-shaped rocks jutting from the walls and ceiling.

"Don't you think that it's odd that we haven't run into anybody else for the entire time that we've been in this 'maze'?" Lucy pointed out.

Gray grunted and Plue offered a soft 'pun pun' in response.

"You know what I think?" Lucy continued mostly to herself. "I think that this 'maze' was never really a maze from the start."

This grabbed Gray's attention. "And how do you figure that?" he asked skeptically.

"Well, for one, we haven't met anyone else." Lucy said mulling their situation over in her head. "And for two, haven't you noticed how we've been walking for minutes now and haven't run into a _single_ dead end." she placed her hand on her chin. "I think that this path is actually intended to throw us off of our course and lead us farther away from the exit."

Gray stopped walking.

"If you think about it, it makes sense." he spoke catching on. "The minute we walked into this maze or whatever," he crouched down and touched a finger to the floor, "I'd felt a draft blowing on my ankles from the floor of the cave. Probably because we were right in front of the entrance. But that wasn't the case. As we moved further along the maze I continued to feel the draft under my feet and decided to follow it." He stood back up.

"Which would explain the random path I thought you were taking." Lucy muttered thinking back to the beginning.

"Every so often I would lose the feel of the draft against my ankles, so I ducked into random openings to see if I could find it again." Gray explained leaning his arm against a icicle. Lucy followed him with her eyes.

"And I'll bet the draft got stronger as we moved along." she guessed, eyes lighting up when Gray nodded his head.

"But every time I would feel it getting stronger we'd fall into a trap. So that's when I decided that the draft was being used as a divergent and let you and Pyxis take over." he finished noticing Lucy's sudden energy burst.

"Which means that draft is the key to getting out of here! Air tends to flow towards air, meaning that the exit was nearby and the traps were actually the divergences!" Lucy concluded.

"I'm sure glad you're my partner." Gray said as they began walking again.

Lucy shook her head fiercely. "As much as that flatters me, you were the real help here." she stated petting Plue's head. "If you hadn't paid such close attention to that draft, then we never would have figured this out." she said giving him a smile.

"Don't beat yourself down so much. I know guys have a thing against being nerdy or whatever" she said waving her hand dismissively, "but it never hurts to use your brain once in a while. And from what I've seen during our previous jobs your more intelligent than you make yourself out to be."

Gray blushed a little and scratched at the back of his head.

"True, but if you hadn't pointed out the people thing, then the draft would have never crossed my mind."

"Are we really playing the blame game here?" Lucy argued. "Just take the compliment and roll with it."

"I CAUGHT THE DRAFT!" Gray announced excitedly, turning into a very narrow hallway that was as much slimy as it was small. They had to turn sideways just to move through the space. Lucy placed Plue on her head.

"Hang on to my hair." she suggested when Plue panicked after almost slipping off her head. Plue grabbed onto it with a shaky fist.

"Why does he shake so much?" Gray asked after watching him for a while.

Lucy just shrugged. "I think it's cute."

"Pun! Pun!" said Plue.

After they squeezed through the narrow hallway the cave opened up into another large cavern.

"Why is it so windy in here?" Lucy complained as she helped Plue off her head. Gray narrowed his eyes.

"It's another trap." he contested calmly.

As if to prove his point, the speed of the wind picked up forming a vortex in the middle of the room.

"Someone has to be watching us through lacrima vision." Lucy pointed out to Plue. He nodded in response and together they surveyed the room.

"Step back." Gray commanded as the vortex whipped around the room. "I'll handle this, you guys look for the lacrima."

Lucy gave him a earnest nod and ran towards the back of the room.

"ICE MAKE: SWORD!" she heard him call out.

As Lucy searched the room with Plue, a thought sprung to her mind.

"How do you defeat wind in the first place?" she voiced to no one in particular.

"Pun Pun, PUN!" Plue declared sticking a paw in the air. Lucy frowned.

"Natsu would be really helpful right now." she sighed staring at Plue blankly. "I bet you said something totally genius just now."

A crash sounded from the other side of the room.

Flinching fro the suddenness of the crash, Lucy whipped around and searched for Gray. A cloud of debris shrouded the other half of the room from view, so Lucy couldn't spot him.

"Gray!" she called when she didn't hear any noise.

"I'm alright!" A voice, Gray's voice, rasped from the other side of the dust. "Keep looking for that lacrima!"

Lucy nodded despite him not being able to see it and went back to her search. Plue had traveled a little ways down from her and was searching a tiny hole in the wall.

"See anything?" Lucy asked crawling up beside him.

Plue shook his head no and Lucy sighed.

"If I were a lacrima spying on a team of people, where would I be?" she wondered aloud. "Of course, it would have to be somewhere protected, somewhere people wouldn't immediately notice...I GOT IT!" she shouted swiveling around to where Gray was struggling with the vortex.

Scanning down to where the tip of the vortex was, Lucy noticed a small glimmer.

"Gray!" she shouted not removing her eyes from the glimmer. "Attack the bottom of the vortex! The lacrima is at the bottom of the vortex!"

"Okay!" Gray muttered to himself as he got into stance, slapping his left fist atop his right hand.

"ICE MAKE: CANNON!" He yelled, heaving an ice sculpture cannon over his shoulder.

He blasted at the bottom of the vortex without letting up, until the wind stopped and the tornado disappeared. Meanwhile, Lucy and Plue ran over to where the vortex had been destroyed and picked up a broken shard. Gray walked over shortly after.

"It seems to be a wind lacrima." he stated placidly, taking the shard out of Lucy's hand. "Who ever set this up placed wind magic into this lacrima and made it so that it activated when someone walked in this cavern."

Lucy's eyes shined deviously.

"Which means we're getting closer to the exit!"

"Pun!" said Plue.

* * *

Finding the rest of the way out of the maze had been no easy feat. The final trap had been placed nearly ten meters from the exit **(that's about** **33 feet for those of you who don't know)** ; The entire hall had been shifted so that it slanted to the left and then the right at certain points. Not taking any chances, Lucy and Gray ran through the hallway-Plue wrapped safely in Lucy's arms-and was on the lookout for any unusual items or crevices throughout the hall.

What they didn't expect though, is the floor turning into a mass of coiling snakes.

Feeling their cold scaly bodies wrapping around her legs, Lucy screamed for dear life, snakes were one of her many fears, then started sinking into the floor along with Plue.

Gray continuously froze the snakes slithering up his own legs, but the number of snakes was overwhelming; he couldn't freeze fast enough to keep them at bay. The snakes were just working their way up his waist when suddenly, they disappeared as if they had never existed in the first place, and sand started pouring from above.

"The hell?!" Gray grumbled, head growing heavy with the feel of sand. He tried running, but he was moving much too slow. At this rate, he'd be buried in sand in less than five minutes.

"Plue!" Lucy yelled from behind him. Gray twisted his head a bit to tell her to keep moving, but was instead faced with another issue.

The sand had vanished just as quickly as the snakes, the walls transforming into a giant kaleidoscope with thin shards of gems reflecting thousands upon thousands of Lucys and Grays. From what Gray could see through the distorted images, Lucy was sitting on her knees looking around the wide hall with an expression of confusion.

 _How could they fit all these traps into one hall?_ she pondered looking up at the thousands of images of herself and Gray reflected on the ceiling.

 _There's just no way..._ she thought again as the floor began to shake violently, the glass breaking off the ceiling and walls then crashing to the floor shattering into even tinier fragments.

Slowly, the wall began closing in on the duo, causing more and more glass to rain from above.

Gray screamed for her to run, but Lucy remained in her spot on the floor, stumped. All these traps so far in this one hall were impossible. Even if someone were to hide all this behind a wall, her and Gray would've noticed the glass when the sand came out, or the glass when the snakes were released. And the moving walls. Why would the Master, of all people, put them in such a dangerous position if he knew their was no chance for escape. These walls could kill them and there was no way the Master would let that happen. Which meant these traps could only be one thing...

* * *

Gray had long since tossed Lucy over his shoulder and began running toward the steadily-narrowing exit that didn't seem to get any closer no matter how much he ran. She had to be in pretty deep thought to space out in the middle of a collapsing hallway.

By now, Gray was sure they weren't going to make it, the exit was just too far away and the walls were almost upon them at this point. Thinking upon these facts, he realized that there was never enough time to begin with.

The wall pressed against his arm, startling Gray out of his thoughts. He tried to squeeze over as much as he could but eventually he was pinned in place by the wall and couldn't move. Lucy's leg was curled just around the edge of his waist; Gray scooted it back so that her leg wouldn't get crushed before the rest of her body did. Try to minimize the pain you feel before you die, right?

Gray cringed as the walls squeezed him together even further; he could feel his bones cracking under the pressure. Blood dripped onto his shoulder; it was from Lucy, her eyes shut tight bracing for the final push. Gray closed his eyes too; as much as he saw blood during his life time, he honestly didn't want to witness a whole stream of it bursting forth from a girl who was just squeezed to death. He _sure_ didn't want to see it happen to himself.

Gray waited patiently for the wall to completely smash them to bits, but it never came. Instead, when he opened his eyes, the walls were back in their original positions and he was mushing his body up against the wall. Lucy, instead of being tossed over his shoulder, was lying on the floor, Plue wrapped tightly in her arms.

More than a little freaked at this point, Gray ran over to her. At the same time, Lucy sat up.

As she turned to face him, Gray noticed a mean bruise at the top of her forehead. He knew she could feel it and that it had to be painful, yet Lucy had a big grin on her face.

"Did you know that the key to dispelling illusory magic is awareness?" she asked her voice wobbling. Gray slumped. **(You know those lines -usually purple or blue- that shadow the anime character's face when they have a sudden revelation and feel stupid for not realizing it before hand? Yeah, Gray has those on his face right now)**. Suddenly, opening his eyes to see a completely normal room made sense.

"How did you figure it out?" he asked recovering.

Lucy pulled herself to her feet and dusted of her tattered clothes.

"Well, I found it quite suspicious that there were all these traps within the same area of the hall. The traps were back to back, when normally they'd be spaced out to accommodate for lack of hiding space. You can't hide two traps together like that without uncovering the other one in the process. If the ceiling broke in order to release the sand, then how did it reform in order to hold the mirrors in place?" Lucy hitched her eyebrow high on her face while Gray crossed his arms over his chest.

"See, that's why I said that I was glad to have partnered up with you." he said in a 'I win' kind of tone. Lucy grinned at his childishness.

" _Anyways,_ " Gray began looking around, "We should get moving."

Lucy gave a brief nod and together they ran the rest of the few feet to the exit.

Once they got out, they were met by an overjoyed Natsu, who immediately yanked Lucy away from Gray's side.

"What took you so long!" he nearly shouted, leaving Lucy to sweat drop along with Gray who was now in his boxers. Which then made Lucy realize that he'd performed this whole activity shirtless. She sighed.

"Booby traps are what took us so long." she deadpanned.

Natsu seemed satisfied with her vague response and slung his arm over her shoulder.

"DO NOT!" Lucy yelled removing his arm. Her shoulder was still not healed from it's water burn and his extremely warm arm was only bound to make it worse. Natsu frowned.

"What's the matter Luce?" he said looking a bit pensive.

Lucy pointed at her back.

"I WAS ALMOST BOILED ALIVE, IS WHAT'S THE MATTER! I don't know what kind of sick, twisted mind the Master has, but I demand a break!" she cried falling to the ground on her stomach. Soft snores followed shortly after.

Natsu stared dumbly for a moment before crouching down beside her.

"She's out cold." Gray stated comprehensively as he lay down in the grass next to her.

Natsu, not liking him being so close, sat down in-between the two and propped Lucy's head up on his left leg. He looked back toward the cave entrance.

"Wendy's still in there so we'll have to wait for her to come out to heal Lucy." he spouted randomly to Gray who had now closed his eyes.

"How long were we in there anyways?" Gray questioned popping one eye open.

Natsu had begun to subconsciously play with Lucy's hair as he thought about his answer. A smug smile tugged at Gray's lips and he closed his eye.

"About an hour and thirty minutes give or take." Natsu responded airily.

"Well," Gray said, surprisingly chill for not winning any bonus points which Natsu would have flipped out about, "At least we got out alive."

Natsu looked at him doubtfully.

"I sure am glad to have had Lucy as a partner though."

A vein popped out on Natsu's head. He opened his mouth to speak but Gray cut him off.

" So, How'd you finish within the time limit?" he asked laughing in his head at how over-protective Natsu was acting towards Lucy. And not just recently. Sure enough, he'd been acting that way since the whole eclipse incident but for some reason over the past few weeks he'd become exceedingly bad about it.

"I got really frustrated after falling into my third pit hole and went into a bit of a rage and exploded the part of the maze I was in." Natsu explained proudly oblivious to Gray's taunt. That's why Gray enjoyed toying with him. The boy was denser than a sack of bricks.

"So,Happy flew us over the debris and we ended up at he end." he finished lamely.

Gray sweat dropped. "That sounds like something you would do." he uttered.

Natsu, with his sharp hearing, heard his slick comment and leaned over Lucy's head, promptly smashing his forehead against Gray's.

"What's that supposed to mean, Ice Princess?" he growled a fiery red aura surrounding him.

Gray sat up and pushed Natsu's forehead back.

"Exactly what it sounds like you Flame-headed Freak."

* * *

 **Sorry that this update took so long. I went into one of my anime watching binges then got lazy and ended up typing two-hundred words and giving up. I would have finished revising yesterday, but my brother _insisted_ that we go to Sea World, even though I told him countless times that I needed to update my story. **

**Another thing: I did not expect this chapter to come out this long. Otherwise, I would have put some of it on my previous chapter. Just bear with me on this one. And is it me, or did this chapter just seem to go by a little to quickly? Despite my trying to add details... -_-  
**

 **Again, thanks to all of you out there who took the time to read my story and to IvyLovesYou and isabell748 who made my day with your reviews. I thank you sincerely. Have a fabtabulous day/night/afternoon/evening/morning everyone and I hope you stay tuned!  
**

 **~Ja ne! ^_^**


	5. Lunch Break!

After several requests for a break—most of the complaints coming from Gray and Lucy—Master decided now was the appropriate time to have a lunch stop for everyone's sake; you could hear Natsu and Happy's stomachs grumbling from a mile away.

Together the entire guild rested their feet in a nearby hilltop meadow filled with trillions of beautiful yellow daisies; a few purple flowers and a few white flowers dotted the field every now and then.

Natsu, Lucy, Levy, Gajeel, Lily, and Happy **(in that exact order from right to left, Lucy being the starting point)** sat in a small circle in the grass chewing on turkey sandwiches made by Mira before she left the guild that morning. Well, _Lucy_ , _Levy, Gray_ and _Gajeel_ were chewing on their sandwiches. Natsu was inhaling the food as if he hadn't just eaten breakfast that morning, Happy was munching away on the usual raw fish, and Lily was content with taking the turkey and cheese out of his sandwiches and throwing everything else away.

Typical cats...and Natsu.

Lucy and Levy were ranting about the latest edition of Sorcerer Weekly, apparently there had been some bad articles about Fairy Tail's latest destruction in there.

"Yeah, and they totally over-exaggerated the wreckage we did on Alabaster's ship!" Levy exclaimed waving her hands in the air with a cute pout on her face. "We only destroyed the bow, gun port, foremast, and a _little_ portion of the stern!"

"That's practically the entire ship, Shrimp." Gajeel pointed out attacking his second sandwich. Lily nodded sagely in agreement.

Levy turned towards Gajeel and shot him an evil glare. "Is not!" she spat squeezing her sandwich so hard that the meat and lettuce started to slip out. "You still have the hull, main deck, hold, the rest of the stern, rudder, quarterdeck, stores, and the rest of the minor parts left!"

Gajeel looked up from his sandwich, and met Levy's eyes with a impartial look.

"Those are all the minor parts, but okay, there's no need to get all red-in-the-face about it."

He looked back down at his sandwich, while Lucy held Levy back from strangling the black-haired dragon slayer.

"I'll kill 'em!" Levy squealed as Lucy pulled her away a bit too hard causing the both of them tip over onto their backs.

After Levy had calmed down, Lucy reached for the last sandwich, her second one, in the basket, flinching when Natsu started screaming:

"NO LUCE! THE LAST SANDWICH IS MINE!"

He tried to snatch the sandwich from her hand, but Lucy yanked it out of his reach, pushing her hand and foot against his chest to stop him from crawling over her in his attempt to reach the turkey sandwich.

"Natsu...get off!" she huffed, trying to kick Natsu's heavy body off her. "You've already had about nine of these while I've yet to get my second! This one's mine!"

Natsu didn't let up.

"But Luuuuuce~" he whined still reaching for the food "The last sandwich is always the best sandwich!" he complained.

Lucy shoved her boot in his face.

"WHAT KIND OF LOGIC IS THAT!" she hollered, repeatedly kicking his face now.

Natsu let go of her briefly when the pain in his nose became overwhelming and Lucy used this chance to escape.

"It's mine!" she yelled running away from the group while trying to stuff the sandwich in her mouth at the same time.

Natsu ran after her.

"No Luce, we should check it for poisoning!" He called to her.

"It's no use making an excuse now." Gray deadpanned watching his idiot friends run circles around the meadow. "She already knows you just want to eat it."

Happy examined Levy's sandwich as she ate.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about." He said through a mouthful of fish. "They don't look all that great and Fish sandwiches sound way better."

Levy and and Gray sighed.

* * *

Natsu had finally managed to tackle Lucy to the ground minutes later after she'd managed to take a large bite out of the sandwich.

"I'll sill eat it!" Natsu had yelled after her pumping his legs even faster.

Lucy face-planted into the ground the moment Natsu had pounced on her back.

Meanwhile, Natsu seized her wrist and brought the sandwich up to his mouth, scarfing it down quickly, then giving Lucy his trademark grin.

She didn't fall for it.

"How uncouth!" Carla said disgustedly as she and Wendy witnessed the entire spectacle from just a few feet away.

"Mmm." Wendy agreed with a frown on her face. "Poor Lucy-san. I bet Mr. Natsu is very heavy."

Panting hard, Lucy slumped in defeat-she was so hungry too-and pressed her forehead to the ground.

"Get off me please, Natsu." she mumbled into the grass. All that running had only managed to make her hungrier. She had to admit she was a little upset at the moment. Especially with Natsu.

Once again, because of his dragon hearing, Natsu was able to make out Lucy's muffled mess and he hopped up off of her back gleefully.

Lucy didn't immediately stand up, but instead took her time sitting up first and looking up at the white fluffy clouds in the sky. Natsu offered her his hand sheepishly, sensing Lucy's dark-ish mood, but she ignored it, deciding that she wouldn't let his actions get to her, but she wouldn't forgive him so easily either. Especially when she was this hungry.

As if to stress this, her stomach released a small growl, which made Lucy frown.

Instead of slapping his hand away, which Lucy felt like doing, she simply pushed herself off the ground using both her hands, and without looking at Natsu, proceeded to walk back to their picnic spot in the grass.

"He is such an idiot." Gray mumbled as Lucy and Natsu approached, Natsu sporting a frown while Lucy was being fake cheery.

Lucy plopped down next to Levy again and visibly lightened when Levy held out the other half of her sandwich.

"I saved it for you, and don't say 'No Levy-chan, you eat it, but thank you though' because I know you're hungry, I just heard your tummy growl." Levy said matter-of-factually, glancing down at Lucy's belly while Lucy blushed a light pink.

"Yeah, When Lucy's hungry, she tends to eat everything in sight. She might eat everybody here!" Happy giggled.

"Do not!" Lucy yelled throwing a handful of dirt on his fur.

Happy gasped in horror and tears welled up in his eyes.

"Natsu!" he wailed flying into his partner's chest. "Lucy's being mean to me again! Look! She got me all dirty! Now Carla will think I'm a pig and never accept my fish!"

Natsu stroked his back absentmindedly.

"She already thinks that." Lucy grumbled sticking her tongue out at him.

Lucy accepted Levy's sandwich then, with a big dramatic thank you that left both of them in a fit of laughter.

Gajeel smiled a small, tiny smile that no one but Lily noticed and Gray nodded approvingly. Natsu sulked.

Soon enough, Lucy was back to her regular self discussing books animatedly **(haha)** with Levy as they laid back on the grass. In the midst of their review of some adventure/drama/minor romance novel about a king who was in hiding due to an assassination attempt on his life when he was younger, their conversation had managed to switch to how dangerous the test had turned out to be so far.

"During the race I almost got trampled by the crowd several times." Levy complained, aggravation leaking through her tone. "But most of the time I was nearly squashed because of Elfman." Though he didn't see it, Levy shot him a death glare from her spot across the field as a sort of vengeance.

"Gray and I almost died during that 'maze'." Lucy said shivering. "And my back still burns from that water slide."

"I say the hallucination room was the worst." Gray inputted, laying back in the grass as well.

"There were weapons on the water slide." Lucy protested lamely.

"Yeah, there were weapons in every trap." Gray retorted.

* * *

Before they knew it, Gray, Lucy, and Levy had all fallen asleep together-Gray had scooted closer to them so that he could join the conversation which was why he ended up snuggling up with Lucy, his arm draped around her waist, while Lucy and Levy had their backs pressed together.

Gajeel was chuckling quietly at Natsu's furious expression as he walked over to the group and roughly kicked Gray's arm off of Lucy. Gray didn't wake up though, he just simply rolled in the opposite direction, mumbling 'stupid flame breath' in his sleep.

Being the jealous idiot he is, Natsu attempted to pry Lucy and Levy away from each other-in that short time they had managed to wrap each other in a death hug in their sleep-for some of his own cuddling-Lucy's scent helped him sleep better-and was met with a swift 'LUCY KICK!', that sent Natsu flying.

Gajeel burst into a fit of snickers, laughing even harder when he _swore_ he saw Gray smile in his sleep.

Natsu returned to the group sporting a foot-sized red spot on his stomach and a frown.

"That looks like it's gonna bruise." Gajeel cackled as he approached.

Natsu gave him a dark you-better-shut-your-mouth look and stood next to him and Lily waiting for the stinging on his belly to subside.

After a few seconds-the pain long forgotten-and what seemed like some deep thinking, Natsu's eyes darkened with mischief and he stalked up to Lucy, kneeling down next to her head.

"This is gonna be interesting." Gajeel spoke to Lily who was sitting beside him watching the salmon-haired boy with mild amusement.

"If he does what I think he's gonna do," Lily replied crossing his arms, "Then yeah, things are about to get fairly interesting."

Meanwhile, Natsu, seeking retribution for that 'Lucy kick' he just received, dragged his tongue up the right side of Lucy's cheek and stepped back grinning as Lucy shot up out of her sleep a bit dazed feeling nasty, slimy wetness trailing up the side of her face.

Looking around to focus her vision, Lucy's eyes finally settled on Natsu.

"Natsu, this better not be what I think it is." she said a dark aura beginning to appear around her.

Natsu backed away a couple of steps and shot her a challenging what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it smirk.

Lucy wiped the spit on her face off onto her tank-top and stood up preparing to strangle the salmon-haired idiot in front of her.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW GROSS THAT IS!" she shrieked causing both dragon slayers to cringe.

Levy woke up bleary-eyed and alert.

"What's wrong Lu-chan?" she questioned squinting.

"She 'Lucy kicked' me in her sleep when all I was trying to do was get her away from the peverted Popsicle over there!" he whined pointing at Gray who was still on the ground sleeping like a child.

"I WAS ASLEEP!" Lucy shouted feeling her anger spike. "YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THAT CLOSE TO ME IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

"But I decided I wanted to nap too and your scent always helps me go to sleep." Natsu admitted, scratching his head shyly.

He didn't know if it was the anger or his comment that made her face turn blood red.

Guessing it was probably the former, Natsu turned and ran for dear life screaming at the top of his lungs, "PLEASE DON"T 'LUCY KICK' ME!" as his fellow members watched and shook their heads at his stupidity.

"I honestly didn't think he could get any stupider than what he was, but he proves me wrong every time." Jet commented as Natsu sped past them, Lucy right on his heels.

"You're stupid for thinking _stupider_ is a word." Droy scoffed next to him.

"Are you implying that I'm not intelligent enough to be with Levy!" Jet cried.

"So he doesn't deny being stupid." Bixlow deadpanned nearby.

Picking up a pair of flip-flops from a nearby group, Lucy flung one, then two shoes at Natsu's head, one immediately after the other, with all her strength.

Natsu dodged the first one easily, but was hit square in the back of the head by the unexpected second shoe that he had absolutely no chance to dodge.

Losing his footing due to the surprise, and well, the force of the shoe, Natsu fell to the ground on his stomach, but rolled over once hit hit the ground so he would have a chance to soften the damage of Lucy's kick.

But then again, he was on the ground.

Natsu sweat dropped at the thought of Lucy creating a new move like the 'Lucy Stomp' to punish him for licking her face.

She didn't taste that great anyways...

Not that he'd say anything at this point.

But, instead of doing either of those things, Lucy sat on his stomach and repeatedly tried to punch him in the face, none of which actually landed because Natsu blocked them all. So Lucy resorted to pinching, and seeing that most of Natsu's skin was exposed, you could see how that was somewhat torturous. Especially because she kept doing the large, pull-your-skin-off type pinches.

Natsu howled and yelped and begged Lucy to stop, but she didn't let up and nobody stopped her. In fact, they felt he kind of deserved it.

"Gihi." Gajeel snickered enjoying Natsu's torture. "Now that Salamander has gotten the attention he wanted from Bunny Girl he's beggin' to be left alone."

Lily shook his head pityingly.

Behind them, Natsu laughed maniacally as Lucy began to tickle him mercilessly.

It went on for a painfully long time; so long he stopped laughing and went limp.

Some members swore they saw Natsu's soul leave his body.

"So the idiot finally died. Eh." Gray said fully awake and scratching his head.

Suddenly Levy shrieked and Gajeel went pale.

"Gray, your clothes." Levy squeaked slamming her eyes closed.

Gajeel retched. "I think I'm gonna lose my lunch."

Gray looked down to see that he had not a shred of clothing on.

"HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!"

* * *

 **I have but one excuse as to why this update took so long: I honestly didn't feel in the writing mood.**

 **I also had that extreme writer's block.**

 **I wanted to make this break scene but I had no idea what it was going to be about, so I had to take some time out to plan it on paper and then I just plain out didn't feel like doing the actual typing so I kept putting the story, off saying 'I'll do it tomorrow', and so we ended up here.**

 **For those of you who were waiting for me to update, I sincerely apologize.**

 **I can't promise that it won't happen again, but I'll try to be better at my timing.**

 **During the writing, I am ashamed to say that I honestly forgot that Happy was with them, so I had to go back into the story and throw him a couple lines, so if his input seems random, you know why.**

 **Again, thank you for taking the time to read my story, I can't tell you how grateful I am!**

 **Next chap. we'll be back to the activities, but I must warn you, this chap may end up a 2 or 3 part due to the fact that it's multiple activities in one. Just throwin' that out there.**

 **Until next time...**

 **~Ja ne! ^_^**


	6. Triathlon? (part 1 of 3)

**And here's the long-awaited (technically; no matter what the friggin' computer says) chapter five...**

* * *

The one thing Lucy was excited about for this next activity was the change of scenery. After being surrounded by large, hazardously jagged rocks, flat plains filled with miles upon miles of wild grass, and dry heat, a jungle was just what she needed. All tall trees and over-sized ferns, giant waterfalls, soft dirt, colorful animals, a nice tropical breeze…

What she wasn't all that ecstatic about was the mile-and-a-half long walk they had to take, **AFTER** getting off their second train— _and_ a boat—to get here!  
Talk about inconvenient!

After traveling a little ways into the forest, Master Makarov stopped in front of what seemed to be a marked course that lead into a tight clustering of trees.

Conversations instantly erupted and bets were placed by Cana and a few others on what they were _sure_ the next activity would be.

Trying to get everyone's attention using an inside voice at this stage was not gonna cut it. So Master Makarov went with the more definitive approach.

"LISTEN UP YA DAMN BRATS!" he shouted over all the chatter and laughter.

Silence immediately ensued.

"This next test is a triathlon, but tweaked a bit to fit the environment. As you can see, you'll be heading into a marked course split into three parts: land, water, and air." he pointed to the mass of trees behind him. "The first portion of the course is air. For this portion of the test, you'll be swinging through vines hanging from those trees; before any questions are raised, no you cannot run through it." he said raising up a hand in a 'stop' motion. "The entire ground is a deep mud pit that's practically impossible to run through. You'll have to push your way through. That way if you fall, you'll have a soft cushion to fall on." The master smiled sinisterly.

"He just wants us to get dirty." Levy deadpanned.

Behind her Cana begrudgingly handed over a bag of jewels.

"Once you get to the end of the tree line," Makarov continued casually, "You will arrive at the second portion of the triathlon: The land portion. Waiting in a line will be several saddled animals. **(you know the big leopard and elk look-alike animals that they ride all the time in the manga; see chap. 363 and 366 for reference).** You are to hop on whichever one you want and ride it along the course until you reach the third portion of the triathlon: water. There, you will dismount your animal and swim through the marked section of the river until you reach the finishing point. There will be a lacrima that locks your places in, so you don't have to worry about who came in first or second or if you tied."

Several breaths of relief were heard at this point.

"Another important thing." Makarov announced when everyone calmed down. "This activity will be the only one done without partners."

The expressions were half-and-half at this point. Some members looked distraught at this announcement while others appeared mildly smug.

"SOLO IS MANLY!" Elfman screamed to no one in particular.

"There's no one to hold you back." Evergreen agreed.

Lucy was just glad that she'd changed into a pair of shorts back at the train station. Because her clothes got ripped during the last activity, she was in a completely different outfit now; a pair of bleached, blue jean shorts, a yellow tee with a white bunny on it along with her usual key belt and pouch, and her brown boots that reached up to her calves.

You could say she was prepared.

The start point was a few meters away from the first course-if anyone glared at the trees any harder they'd probably burst into flames-so everyone had to run a bit before they could actually start climbing. This weeded out the slow from the start.

Lucy hated running, it wasn't the actual movement she had a problem with, or the sweating-she was used to that by now-it was just that she had to hold her boobs the entire time... but she honestly didn't want to face punishment at the end, so she allowed herself a light jog that was _still_ faster than some member's running!

By the time she reached the trees most of the members were clawing their way up the fist tree, or at least _trying_ to claw their way up the first tree; Elfman had already fallen into the mud pit.

"DIRT IS MANLY!" he shouted as he charged right up the tree again after Lucy.

Lucy had a hard time getting up the tree; her feet kept getting stuck in the holds, but Elfman apparently didn't mind-in fact he encouraged her to keep pushing to get to the top, much to Lucy's annoyance.

"PERSEVERANCE IS MAN!" he screamed behind her the right half of his body coated in hard mud.

Lucy seriously considered kicking him back to the ground.

Once Lucy-and Elfman-arrived at the tip of the tree, well as far as they could go without the branches snapping under their weight, she could hear the shrieks and yells of her fellow guild mates as, one-by-one, they flung themselves onto the nearest hanging vine, swung to the next tree and repeated the entire process all over again.

Lucy slumped a little. The master was literally insane for making them do this.

 _Everyone will be exhausted by the time they reach the second portion of the race!_ She thought to herself.

Suddenly a hand slapped her back and Lucy let off a sharp squeal.

"Woah, Lucy it's just me!" Gray said holding his hands up in surrender. Lucy could see the laughter in his eyes.

"Why can't you guys give some one a warning before you just pop up behind them!" Lucy whined while clutching the shirt area directly above her heart.

"I saw you pale at the sight of the vines so I just came to give you a little motivation." Gray explained while giving her a weird, unexplainable look.

Lucy looked doubtful.

"Come on, you've done worse stuff than this right?" Gray said preparing to jump on his own vine. "It's no different than you swinging around that whip of yours."

Lucy looked at him as if he were really stupid.

"It's completely different." she deadpanned, but Gray was long gone.

Next to appear behind her was Natsu who looked really amped to jump on one of those vines.

"Hey Luce." He said in her ear, causing Lucy to shiver.

"I _know_ you just heard me talking to Gray." she muttered a bit annoyed that yet _another_ person managed to spook her and in such a short time.

Natsu simply smiled and shrugged.

"Heard what?"

Lucy was about to hit him, but a question popped into her mind.

"What're you doing back here Natsu, usually you're gunning to be in the front." she wondered.

"That stupid block of ice distracted me, so I didn't start off right!" Natsu whined, crossing his arms and pouting like a little kid.

Lucy nodded and stepped out of the way. "Well, you better get moving." she warned. "Gray's already headed to the next tree."

Natsu brightened up and exploded into flames unintentionally.

"Alright! I'm all fired up!" he screamed before charging at the vines.

Lucy sighed. "He's gonna break it and fall."

Sucking in as much air as possible-for some reason, that seemed to calm her down-Lucy flung herself at her own vine, screaming as her hands came in contact with the leafy surface. The force was hard and immediately she began to slide down the vine. Panicking, Lucy tightened her grip to the point that she was strangling the vine, trying to create as much friction as possible to stop herself from reaching the bottom and slipping right off into the mud. She didn't want to dig her nails into the vine either because that would make it snap faster.

But before she knew it, her side smacked the trunk of the next tree, knocking the wind out of her.

Lucy sunk her fingers into the first indent she saw and let go of the vine. Fortunately, it didn't snap under her weight but if she had to keep smacking trees like that she was gonna have a bruise the length of her entire right side tomorrow.

Lucy clawed up her second tree and came face to face with Levy, waiting for he chance to jump on a vine. (these trees are very spacious)

"Hey Lu-chan!" she shouted excitedly. Lucy waved and took in her friend's appearance. She noticed Levy had a huge scratch up her arm above her elbow stretching all the way up to the end of her shoulder. It was bleeding slightly. Her normally beautifully styled persian blue hair was windblown; cheeks pink with adrenaline.

Lucy looked down at herself. Small fragments of tree bark clung to her clothes and her right leg had two tiny scratches on it from the impact. Her hair was most likely just as crazy as her best friend's.

Poking at the exposed skin on her legs, Lucy glanced up at Levy. "We might die before we reach the end of this section." she complained. Levy slumped her shoulders exasperatedly in agreement.

"I don't know how many more of these I can take. The first time I honestly thought I broke my arm!" Levy sighed. She rubbed her right arm just below the scratch.

Lucy frowned at the swelling drops of blood and began pulling the ribbons out of her hair. The were a pretty decent length, enough to cover up most of the problem spots, which is exactly what Lucy thought as she walked up to Levy, tying both ribbons around the bloody areas of the girl's arm.

Levy looked confused at first, but then caught on to what Lucy was doing. Her eyes sparkled.

"Thanks, Lu-chan." she whispered softly holding her injured arm with her uninjured hand.

Lucy simply smiled. "No problem, Levy-chan! That's what nakama are for!"

Levy smiled back at her then looked at the vines.

"Speaking of nakama, do you want to jump together Lu-chan?! This tree is big enough for us to stand up there at the same time!" she exclaimed, pointing at the awaiting vines.

Lucy eyed them apprehensively. She really didn't want to risk missing the target, or worse a collision, but seeing Levy's excited face... Lucy smothered her apprehension and gave Levy the most determined face she could manage.

"Let's do this!"

At the same time, they ran to the edge of the tree and jumped, thankfully landing on two separate vines. Feeling her heart racing and her hair whipping out behind her made Lucy's stomach flip. Looking down at the mud pit below her, she released a shaky laugh. When she looked back up though, and odd grin was on her face. She looked over at Levy who looked absolutely terrified. Levy returned the gaze and seemed to relax instantly. She let off a nervous giggle and shot Lucy a thumbs up.

Lucy's grin grew and before she could stop herself, she found herself releasing a loud whoop.

Levy returned it with equal fervor.

They shared another look and burst into laughter, dipping their bodies down so that the vines would swing higher. The next tree was a bit taller than she'd anticipated.

When they approached the next tree, Lucy tensed up her arms so that the impact wouldn't hurt as much and squeezed her eyes tight. Her hip took the brunt of the impact and Lucy swore she could feel it bruising already.

* * *

"I can't feel my arm." Lucy stated morbidly after she clawed her way up the thirteenth tree. By this time, her clothes were battered and coated in dirt, every inch of exposed skin was covered in scratches and lacerations, twigs and leaves littered her hair, and she itched like crazy.

She just wanted to go home and soak in the bath at this point.

Along the way Lucy had met up with Levy, Juvia, Romeo, and lots of other people-each having their own little conversations with her along the way; she never came across Natsu or Gray again-, but she was surprised when this time it was Erza who walked up to her.

"What are you doing all the way back here?" Lucy pondered, noticing Erza's puzzled look. She wasn't exactly the fastest runner in FairyTail, or even remotely close, so Lucy kinda figured she'd be in the back this challenge, but Erza, _Erza_ was a different point. She was competitive and _always_ in the front. It was like a ritual. So why was she back here with her?!

"Actually you're father up than you think Lucy. I'm in seventh place." Erza replied with a hint of bewilderment.

Lucy's eyes bulged in shock. No way she was in eighth place! She at least had to be in the fifties or something. She had been behind **a lot** of people!

"Quite a few people have fallen off the vines at this point."

Erza looked down at the ground causing Lucy to do the same. As she said, there were at least thirty people sloshing around or just plain laying in the mud. Several of them were making their way to the tree she was currently in, or the closest one to them.

Erza looked upon them with an admiring expression.

"Not giving up is the righteous thing to do." she mumbled to herself.

Lucy sweat-dropped. She knew Erza was about to launch into another one of her famous speeches about strength and persistence, and honestly wasn't in the mood for that right now-she had to get going-so she began to back away slowly until she was out of Erza's grabbing range and approached the few hanging vines that were left.

 _I'm gonna assume that this is the part that everyone failed at_ , Lucy thought as she eyed her guildmates swimming through the mud below. Even if they did manage to make it back up the tree, only about twelve of them-after Lucy swung across-would be able to cross before all the vines were used up. The rest of them would have to jump back down into the mud and make their way to the next tree.

Feeling a bit guilty-Lucy honestly didn't know why though, she didn't put them down there-she signaled to the few people who looked up at her to move on to the next tree. Droy and Vijeeter shot her an enthusiastic thumbs up, Alzack and Bisca gave her a grateful salute, and Reedus, Warren, and Tono gave her an appreciative nod before moving on to the next tree. Waving to them as they went along, Lucy allowed herself a tiny smile. At least she managed to help seven people out; the rest were on their own.

Just as she was about to jump though, she remembered something. Lucy paused in an awkward running position and turned her face so that she could she Erza, who was still watching the people down below struggle to push through the thick mud. They were moving very sluggishly, which made Lucy fairly suspicious that the Master added a little something to the mud to make it a thicker than a normal mud pit should be.

 _That old troublemaker!_ she thought, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. He was good at making things a lot more difficult than necessary.

Looking back up to where Erza stood spaced out, Lucy cleared her throat.

"Um, Erza. I suggest you get a move on before more people show up." Lucy advised gaining the redhead's attention.

"You remember that we are in the middle of a challenge right?"

This seemed to snap Erza out of her stupor and she began spluttering, embarrassed.

"O-oh right, right. Yes, I should get going shouldn't I?" She looked at Lucy with a set gaze. Lucy began to sweat. "Thanks, Lucy."

Lucy wasn't entirely sure what she was being thanked for, but she was glad that she wasn't in trouble. Giving Erza, the widest smile she could, Lucy sprung off the tree like she had the other fifteen times that day **(this is obviously an exaggeration because earlier I had mentioned that this was the thirteenth tree** **that she'd climbed)**.

* * *

On the twenty-second tree is where the problems arose. Lucy had just jumped, quite exhaustively, on her next vine-she was now three swings away from the next portion of the triathlon-when it happened. Lucy felt a sudden jerk from above her and realized with a panic that her vine was beginning to snap. She looked around frantically for something to grab onto, but she was all alone on this one. Cursing her inevitably bad luck, Lucy wailed as her half of the vine snapped off from the rest.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

* * *

Lucy landed in the mud a few seconds later with a hard, nasty splat. Despite the mud's cushion-y properties, the landing actually hurt like hell and Lucy had blacked out for a few seconds from the force of the impact. Remembering to breathe, Lucy gulped as much oxygen as she could, wincing when a sharp pain flitted up her spine.

Feeling her hands sinking deeper into the mud, Lucy forced her legs to stand. The world seemed to spin once she was up, causing a headache to form in her brain. Covered head-to-toe in ridiculously thick mud, _was it hardening already?_ , Lucy put one foot in front of the other and slowly made her way through the mud pit.

By her fortieth or so step, Lucy's legs ached with exhaustion; moving through this mud was like dragging around an elephant tied to her ankle, way too impossible.

Giving up, Lucy fell back into the mud and looked up at the canopy of trees above. Little rays of sunlight filtered their way through the slits in the leaves and dappled the ground with even tinier spots of light. It was really pretty if you were looking at it from the ground like Lucy was. The light shined like thousands the tiniest, most lustrous jewels.

Suddenly, a random thought popped into Lucy's mind. It was what Erza had been muttering earlier:

 _"Not giving up is the righteous thing to do."_

Without a moments hesitation, Lucy was on her feet then, moving towards the next tree. Who was she to give up at a time like this when all her other nakama were pushing themselves to the limits to avoid getting punishment.

Punishment...

The thought of that made Lucy move faster.

Yet there was still one minor problem.

As Lucy pushed her way through the viscous mud, she noticed that the mud in her hair and on her upper back was drying considerably fast. It was making it very difficult for her to move her neck around.

 _Was the mud enchanted?_

Lucy had been wondering the same thing earlier when she had noticed Elfman's mud-crusted arm while he was climbing the tree behind her at the beginning of the race. It was hardening way too quickly for ordinary mud, not to mention how uncharacteristically thick it was.

Lucy held her foot in the air to test her hypothesis. In little less than a minute the mud hardened, locking her leg in a mud casing that was impossible to break off by hand.

Lucy frowned and tapped a finger to her chin.

Leaning over, she stuck her foot back into the mud and watched as the mud on her leg liquified again.

"We were never meant to escape this mud pit." She thought aloud, whimpering dejectedly at the mud caked in her hair.

 _Hng...That is going to take forever to get out._

Steeling her eyes, Lucy looked at how far she was away from the next section. She was three trees away from the next section and each tree was at least four meters **(about 13ft)** apart. The minute she stepped out of the mud pit, she had one minute approximately to make it to the animals before she was completely solidified by the mud.

Such a small window of time.

She pushed herself the last 39 feet, focusing on the burning pain in her thigh and calf muscles, of putting one foot in front of the other.

Once she reached the bank of the mud pit, Lucy dragged herself over the edge, instantly feeling the weight of the mud fall from her lower half-it had been up to her waist.

Stumbling onto her feet-her sense of gravity was a little off due to the fact that she was carrying the weight of that heavy mud for so long-Lucy eyed the goal in front of her with fierce determination.

.

.

Her one minute started now.

* * *

 **Aaaaaaaaand we're finished.  
**

 **With this part that is.**

 **I know in my previous chap. I was going on about how I was gonna be better about my timing and whatnot, but that was before I remembered that I had to begin my AP summer assignments. A lot of reading and math, you know?  
And it's really frustrating because some of this stuff I haven't even learned yet, so I'm having to figure out how to do everything all on my own and it's taking up SO MUCH TIME!  
I try to squeeze writing time in there, but I want to make sure I get this work done, grades are everything this year.**

 **I'M GONNA DO BETTER PEOPLE! (not that anyone cares)**

 **I wanna thank all you readers out there for hanging with me and for continuing to read my story. I'm really pushing for your reviews because I want to know what you guys want. I don't want to bore you out of your minds.  
I'll try to update as fast as I can, but your despondence is more terrifying than anything, I'll have you know!**

 **Please everyone have a spectacular summer and get lots of rest! (Before we have to start waking up at O-dark-30 in the morning and get crammed with ridiculous amounts homework. At least I know that's how my life will be). *sigh***

 **.**

 **~Ja ne! ^_^**


	7. The Dragon? (part 2 of 3)

Lucy sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her down the sand path that led to the next portion of the triathlon. She could feel the mud hardening on her skin at this point and feared that she might not make it even though the animals were so close…

Lucy eyed each of them. There were still several creatures waiting at the red line that the Master had mentioned during his explanation of the course. Although they were the same two types of species—giant leopards, elks, and then this dragon looking thingy—each animal had its own distinct color and pattern.

With only seconds to spare, Lucy clamored onto the first creature she laid eyes on, the green and turquoise colored dragon that had black dots covering it's rear, tail, and head, all the way down to the bottom of its long neck. This particular dragon was much smaller than the ones she'd read about or seen for that matter. In fact he was about half the size of your average everyday dragon.

It was a chore to climb onto the dragon's neck considering that her right leg was incapable of bending- the dirt had dried on her leg a couple seconds before she got to the animals -but Lucy managed to make it work. She had just barley managed to wrap her arms around the creature's neck when the rest of her body solidified, trapping her in that position.

Of course she was ecstatic that she arrived in the nick of time, but when the mini dragon unfurled it's wings, then snapped them back in a takeoff position, she could feel her mouth go dry and her heart thud loudly in her ears.

The dragon zipped off before Lucy had time to mentally prepare herself; her scream chocked back by the harsh wind blowing in her face. Lucy squeezed her eyes closed, then reopened them when she realized that she had to steer this thing. Using the only part of her body unaffected by the mud pit- her mouth -Lucy, bit the reigns secured around the dragon's neck and yanked hard to the left, leaning with he entire body. The force of it nearly gave her a headache, but it gave Lucy a clear view of the race course around the large, speckled neck of the dragon.

In response to her hard pull, the dragon let off a high-pitched, trill and made a sharp left causing the blonde's head to spin even more. He- Lucy assumed the dragon was male -began to speed down the path once again, kicking up clouds of sand in his wake. What little of Lucy's hair that wasn't weighed down by solid mud was flapping around wildly in the wind as she watched the scenery speed by, just blurs of different shades of greens, blues, and browns, and the occasional red, purple, and yellow.

* * *

Lucy and the dragon had been traveling for a while now- how long was this course anyways, it was already late afternoon -when suddenly the dragon had made an abrupt stop in front of a clustering of tall ferns and wild shrubs, tilting it's head and making those trill noises from its mouth again. But this time the trills were more throaty.

Lucy craned her neck to the best of her abilities to get a good look at the dragon's face, not realizing that her body was tilting off of the creature little-by-little, until her loose grip on his neck slipped and she went tumbling through the ferns, downhill, unable to move an inch of her body.

Lucy winced after every serrated stone and rigid tree she hit, her eyes blurring with dizziness from spinning for so long. She could feel the vomit rising in her throat. The second she thought she was gonna spew, Lucy's backside collided with a hazardously jagged boulder, splitting her neat protective shell right in half. Lucy cringed after thinking about what a mangled mess she would have been had she not been protected by the mud shell.

As she peeled the remainder of the mud casing from her body- only after moving a safe distance away from that deadly boulder -Lucy heard something crashing through the bushes and from how the ridiculously tall grass parted, whatever this _something_ was it was heading straight in her direction.

Lucy immediately jumped into a defensive position, whisking out her Taurus key, prepared for whatever battle she was about to get into. Only there wasn't any danger. Lucy's dragon partner came crashing through the underbrush searching around wildly for something eliciting a half surprise-half battle cry from Lucy. As soon as he spotted her, he immediately calmed down though- apparently he found what he was looking for.

Lucy shot him a dark glare and stood up, embarrassed at all the screaming she did, even _if_ her only company was an unusually small dragon.

"I'll forgive you because _you_ don't know any better." she murmured to him as she petted the space on his head in between his eyes. That and because she _really_ didn't want to be wandering around this ginormous forest alone.

The little dragon soaked up her abundant affections for about 30 seconds before restlessly moving along, sniffing around along the ground with it's beak, leading Lucy to Mavis-knows-where.

Lucy, growing irritated with all the aimless wandering- he was like a second Gray -was about stomp her way in front of the dragon and demand to know where they were going- who knows, he might be able to understand, he had so far -but was stopped from doing so by at _least_ a 200 foot drop of a cliff.

Lucy gaped at the long fall somewhat glad that her dragon was in the lead because she probably would have been so in deep thought that she walked right off the edge without a second glance.

She rubbed his tail gratefully.

Cautiously making her way up to the very edge of the cliff- her dragon companion gave her a 'be careful' look -Lucy looked out into the open sky, her eyes bugging and jaw slackening even further, if that was humanly possible.

Hundreds upon hundreds of dragon's- much larger than the speckled dragon she was standing next to -soared through the sky, each one as colorful as the next. There were babies on the ground eyeing the adults flying around above in what Lucy assumed was excitement- their loud chirps could be heard from Lucy's standpoint clearly.

Lucy looked on with awe, almost taking a step forward before realizing that she couldn't.

"Wow." she whisper-talked as if she might scare them all away, "There are so many of you." she stated obviously, not removing her eyes from the mass of flying creatures.

The dragons had a pattern going on: they'd do several laps along the valley then land; the one's on the ground would spread their wings wide and start flying once the others had landed. She figured it must be a break system or something, a way for the dragons to rest their wings to avoid tearing or cramps.

Lucy guffawed at her realization. "A valley next to a rain forest, huh?' she scoffed watching the dragons on the ground switch off again, "What next? Ancient ruins?"

The small dragon shifted next to her and Lucy gave him a quick glance.

"You know what? I'm gonna have to give you a nickname now. I can't call _all_ of you dragon, then I won't know which one's _you_."

Lucy's dragon didn't seem to be paying attention to her though because he hit her in the back with his beak, sending Lucy flying over the edge of the cliff screaming.

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Lucy flung her arms out to the sides as if she were flying or something- honestly, she didn't know how that was gonna help anything at all, but she did it anyways. The wind stole the breath from her lips and Lucy thought she would die from lack of oxygen before she even got _close_ to the ground.

Then out of nowhere, the dragon swooped under her; Lucy smashed into his backside and burst into a coughing fit from the impact.

"Were you trying to kill me!" she wheezed sitting up on his back.

The dragon released a reverberating coo sound that Lucy took as an apology- seeing that it was the cutest thing she'd ever witnessed, besides Happy's baby pictures.

Wrapping her arms around the dragon's neck, Lucy marveled as the scenery passed as a single blur of colors; It made her nauseous.

Suddenly the dragon dipped low; belly grazing the tip of the grass, which oddly happened to spark a nickname in Lucy's head.

"Seishin!" **(Literal Japanese translation: spirit).** She blurted to no one in particular.

Petting his head absentmindedly, Lucy repeated the name in her head so that she would remember it.

After two more loops, Seishin landed in a spot distant from all of the others; a spot hidden by a thick cluster of trees and wildly overgrown grass. Lucy hopped off his back, glad to be back on solid ground and looked over the area. It was much more woodsy than it appeared from an ariel view. Thick coatings of moss hung from the leaves- growing nearly to the ground-and vines snaked around almost every piece of shrubbery within the vicinity of the small patch of forest.

"We are waaaay separated from the original track." she whined, deflated, only now realizing that she was going to lose this event.

Seishin on the other hand, paced through the trees, seemingly searching for something, but unfortunately not finding it.

Lucy watched him carefully all-the-while glancing in the trees for anything worthy of a mini-dragon's attention.

And that's when she noticed an opening between the bushes he was sniffing at. Of course, the low hanging moss hid it from view but when Seishin exhaled through his nose, it blew the moss aside revealing a cavernous opening complete with ancient-looking bricks layering the arching entrance.

Lucy gaped at the ruin in disbelief.

"No way."

* * *

 **Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it has been absolutely FOREVER since I've updated.**

 **I AM SO SORRY! (insert apologetic emoticon here)**

 **I feel like a horrible person.**

 **No, I _am_ a horrible person.**

 **Though in my defense, I lost my internet _and_ computer over the summer so I can't write at home. I'm doing this from the school computer after school as I type. **

**Anyway, I've been working on this story small increments at a time so it's taken waaaaaaay longer than I originally planned, like, waaaaay longer.**

 **As for the direction of this story...this part came to me randomly when I felt that I should somehow incorporate dragons into this story(I've been a fan of dragon long before I ever saw/read fairytail). Sorry, but the next chappie won't be posted for a while , I have extreme amounts of homework and a ridiculously hard AP Chemistry class to maintain and I honestly don't have the time for this. LUCKILY *waggling my eyebrows* internet will be installed in my house on Friday so I may be able to work on it during the break (yipee!)**

 **During my absence I haven't been doing nothing though. I came up with two more stories for the same category and am already several chapters in progress. So there.**

 **Have an awesome week peoples! I'm out!**

 **~ Ja ne ^_^**


	8. Seishin Attacks! (part 3 of 3)

**Just a few things to say here before we get on with the story:**

 **I want to thank my editor-in-chief** beevaleria, **also** **my bestie whom gets me revved about updating and reminds me- fairly often -that I need to get my but in gear, stop being lazy, and update my story sometime this year. YOUR WELCOME... also, ICHIHIME FOR LIFE!**

 **Now, let me stop being lame and start writing...**

* * *

The first thing Lucy learned about Seishin when they stepped into the vast darkness of the tunnel was that his skin glowed in the dark. It wasn't the type glow that illuminated an entire room, it was a faint glow, the kind that if he got enough distance between them, even in this straight-shot passage, she wouldn't be able to see a thing.

The second thing she learned was that Seishin sniffed everything in his vicinity: the air, the walls, the floor, Lucy-

"Would you stop that!" she grumbled, shoving his snout away from her hair. "You're starting to act like Natsu."

Of course he didn't know who that was, but Lucy didn't care.

After what seemed like only minutes of walking, they came to a split hall. Seishin, ever the leader in their situation, sniffed the air of both directions then began walking down the hall to the right. Lucy didn't say anything, just followed behind him, her thoughts flying all over the place. Where were they? Why did Seishin take this direction? Was he trying to show her something? Her questions abruptly shattered when her foot bumped into the dragon's tail.

Looking up at him, she followed his gaze straight ahead and realized why he'd stopped. Ahead was a circular room lit all the way around with torches alight with blue fire. In the center was a large circular base about two feet high and above it was a swirling ball of light, mostly blue with hints of green and white.

Seishin's eyes dilated at the sight of it and he began to approach the swirling orb slowly, a growl subconsciously erupting from his throat.

Aware of his change in attitude, Lucy frantically stepped in front of the dragon pushing her weight against his chest to prevent him from moving any closer to the suspicious looking orb.

Seriously...the entire room screamed _sketchy_.

 _What was that ginormous thing doing in the middle of these ruins anyways?_ Lucy thought to herself eyeing the suspicious contraption wearily. Maybe it was another one of the Magic Council's secret weapons that always seem to backfire in their face.

Lucy's attempts at restraining the dragon were futile. Seishin's body weight and muscle easily overpowered her and Lucy found herself sliding across the floor without much resistance.

Hooking the heel of her shoe into an uneven section of the floor, Lucy pushed against the hypnotized dragon with all her her might.

"We can't just carelessly approach that thing." She gritted out,wincing at the pressure that was beginning to gather in her ankle. If he pushed any harder she was positive it was going to snap. "We don't know what it does!" she huffed.

Seishin's hazel irises locked onto her chocolate ones, filled with so much impetuous malice that the blonde nearly wet herself. With a feral growl that exposed his sharp canines, the dragon's tail flicked forward bashing into Lucy's side and throwing her into the wall like a rag doll. The blonde let out a pained groan as her body slid down to the brick floor. Even the brick was a dark blue.

Gently cradling her side, Lucy rose from her spot on the floor and took a tentative step forward. Seishin's head whipped around to face her and another fierce growl escaped the dragon's throat. He lunged at her, startling the blonde. She jumped out of the way, just as his hand swiped at her abdomen, the busty blonde managing to narrowly escape his claws as his arms crashed into the wall behind her.

Dust and small debris rained down from the now destroyed wall and Lucy clutched her right side painfully, gasping when she felt a thick liquid that could be none other than blood run between her fingers. Removing her hand to view the damage, the celestial mage frowned at the large jagged gash running up the the length of her waist. The skin around the laceration throbbed and, she noted, quite pale. One of his claws must've snagged her when she froze-up.

The smell of her blood only seemed to make the dragon more frantic, his big head searching through the mist and smoke for the source of the metallic scent.

Lucy took advantage of the accumulating shroud of smoke and silently escaped the room through the massive hole Seishin put in the wall with his tail. She needed to rest somewhere and stanch the bleeding before she went into hypovolemic shock. She'd already lost a significant amount of the crimson fluid.

Vision blurring and head spinning, Lucy managed to curl herself into a corner of the new room. Squishing her body together as much as possible, the mage tugged her shirt over her head and tore it into several wide strips long enough to wrap around her torso. Not even a few minutes after the bandage had been wrapped, blood was seeping through the thin layer of fabric causing Lucy to release a frustrated sigh that only made the area sting worse.

Trying to hold on to her consciousness, Lucy strained her ears to listen as a cacophony of crashes sounded from the other side of the wall. The blonde could feel the tension in her body as the loud noises died down into nothing; as she waited for him to blast another hole in the wall, or crash through the ceiling and eat her where she sat.

The disturbing thoughts only managed to make the girl paranoid; the doe-eyed female almost screamed in terror when Seishin abruptly appeared in front of the celestial mage in all his speckled glory. Lucy tensed in her corner, halting her breathing for a moment, praying he wouldn't see her, until unfortunately, their eyes connected and Lucy noticed that they didn't hold the same malice as they had before.

Now his eyes shined with genuine concern which looked quite heartbreaking on a dragon, his eyes steadily growing wider as a fresh wave of Lucy's blood hit his nostrils for the second time.

He scrambled toward her hastily, sleek claws scraping against the brick floor, halting briefly when Lucy flinched away from him, then gasping at the pain the movement caused her. What she wouldn't give for some of Wendy's healing magic right now.

At this point, the pain was washing over her ten-fold, causing the celestial mage's vision to darken and her body to shiver.

Seishin approached her warily- once he realized she wasn't going to try to harm him -and pressed his muzzle against her arm right above her poorly bandaged wound.

Lucy peeked at him through one eye, her heart rate picking back up, as the dragon cocked his head to the side and examined the blood that soaked through the fabric. Or at least that's what she imagined he was doing. She might have been delusional.

Without warning, he tore the thin fabric with the tip of his canine- Lucy hissed as the air caused her exposed wound to burn fiercely -and dropped a glob of drool on her waist with no reservation.

"WHAT IN THE-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" the blonde mage screeched trying in vain to push the dragon's over-sized head away from her torso. He was stubborn though and pushed right back, dribbling a particularly large glob of spit onto Lucy's gash causing the celestial mage to gasp in horror before she realized that her wound wasn't the least bit painful anymore.

Angling her head so that she could get a good look at her wound, Lucy watched in morbid fascination as the giant laceration on the side of her waist melded into a smooth pale scar practically invisible to the naked eye. With all the insane events she'd seen since joining Fairy Tail, this phenomenon was not all that earth-shattering to her. The blonde mage simply prodded the scar to make sure that the wound _was_ , in fact, closed, then stood up and eyed her speckled partner wearily.

Seishin, all big eyes and adorable face, cocked his head to the side again and Lucy felt the wall she'd built up during his attack shatter. Her shoulders slumped as if a heavy weight had been placed on them and she patted the dragon on the head solemnly, mentally smiling at his likeness to a chastised Natsu as a rumbling purr started up in the dragon's throat.

 _It had to do something with that orb._ She thought as she absentmindedly rubbed her thumb along Seishin's smooth, scaly head.

Her eyes flicked to the hole in the wall; she could see the blue glow of the magic from here. Something about that orb affected Seishin and made him turn against her, into a bloodthirsty savage, she just needed to know why and how.

And the celestial mage got the feeling that they would need to find the answer sooner rather than later.

Something about this whole situation was not right

~ At the Competition ~

Natsu and Gray were neck and neck on the race course, fighting to get the lead on each other, when randomly, the salmon-haired dragon slayer felt a sharp tug at his gut.

In his momentary distraction, the leopard slowed down and Gray took the oportunity to push ahead of him.

"Finally giving up eh fish breath!" the ice mage sneered as his leopard cat pulled in front of Natsu's.

The words were processed as merely faint mumbles in Natsu's brain, but nonetheless his ears hung on every word. Falling for his taunts- as always -Natsu smashed his cat into Gray's ignoring the ' _rawr!_ ' of protest from the leopard itself, instead smashing his own face into Gray's with his usual thug-like expression on his face.

"What didya just call me freak show!" Natsu growled at his guildmate also ignoring the tugging in his gut for now.

Gray returned Natsu's headbutt with a headbutt of his own while giving him an equally ugly glare.

"I didn't stutter." he spat dodging what was supposed to be Natsu's surprise punch. The fire breather did not look the least bit taken aback, rounding again with a second fist that struck Gray directly in the jaw, the force causing his head to snap to the side. Still reeling from the first punch, the raven haired male barely had time to recover, when Natsu's foot smashed into his face, throwing him right off the back of his leopard.

"How's that for fish breath you frozen bastard!" Natsu bellowed as Gray face-planted the ground, his figure retreating farther and farther away as Natsu moved forward. Sitting back down on his giant cat, the fire dragon slayer cursed his impulsiveness when it dawned on him that he now had no competition. Who was he gonna fight with now?

Meanwhile, a few feet behind, Gray dragged himself into a sitting position and brushed the sand from his arms letting loose a string of colorful profanity as he went.

Then an important fact hit him like one of Natsu's punches to the face.

"How the hell is he not getting motion sick?" the ice mage wondered aloud.

...

Natsu peered out into his surroundings, the prickling sensation from a few minutes prior rose up in his stomach again- more prominent now that he had no one to distract him. As usual, he took it as a sign of hunger and focused all his attention on the race until he smelled a nearby water source and started foaming at the mouth. Without a moment's hesitation, the dragon slayer lithely hopped off the leopard's back and ran towards the water with vivid images of fish already popping into his mind. Which reminded him of Happy who was out there somewhere trying his hardest to catch up with Natsu.

He would definitely save his little buddy one or two fish from his catch. A huge grin broke out on his face as he imagined his blue friend crying with joy at Natsu's thoughtfulness. Maybe he would save one for Lucy too.

At the thought of Lucy, another memory drifted into his head, this time of Lucy and how she once chewed Happy for his 'diet' or lack thereof. 'Cats are supposed to have a balanced diet of foods other than fish' she lectured. 'You'll be more susceptible to cat diseases if you didn't eat properly' she added to which Happy haughtily responded with the remark that he was an exceed not just 'any regular house cat.' and thus claimed that his diet was 'special'.

Coming back to his current situation the fire-wielder stepped forward, continuing the final stretch of the triathlon and the world morphed and spiraled before him; for a few seconds he blacked out before switching back to normal. This process continued long after he reached the river- the exact one they had to cross to reach the finish line and win this match.

As he approached the water, the sensation pulsated throughout the dragon slayer's body again and this time when he blacked out he could feel a malicious intent within himself, a _need_ to kill something, hurt some- Natsu dipped his head into the water. No way in hell these thoughts were coming from his own head.

He scanned the area for any intruders, any conspicuous person in general, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. He then took a large whiff of the air but didn't smell anything irregular either. Just the natural earthy scent of the outdoors and Erza and a few others who were quickly closing in on his location.

Damn that old geezer for making the path more difficult than it should have been. If it weren't for the fact that he'd smelled the water, he might've- no _would've_ missed the turn.

Yep. Erza sure was amazing to have found it without the advantage of a heightened sense of smell.

Natsu eyed his hands pensively deciding to continue on with the test- he still wanted to win this match, but...

What the hell was going on?

* * *

 **Okay, so a couple of things to say here.**

 **The first issue to discuss is Seishin, the dragon/ostrich character in my book and the fact that he no longer has those bird-like features. I know I originally described him as having like a beak and some other weird bird characteristics (I don't at all remember how I described him), but now he's all just simply dragon- for the sake of my imagination and how I picture him when I'm writing. And probably how you guys picture him too, since It's pretty difficult to imagine a dragon mixed with a ostrich... so just take out the ostrich features. He's still the same color and he still has the same speckles, it's just that now he's like a miniature dragon (imagine like a dragon baby or... hmm... a great white shark!**

 **Also: I have come to the realization, that I've been spelling Seishin's name wrong (of course I'm spelling it correctly now), but earlier on in the story I started spelling it S-H-E-S-H-I-N instead of what its supposed to be which is S-E-I-S-H-I-N meaning spirit in Japanese. I don't know if I started that in the last two or so chapters- that I think Seishin has a part in -but I will be making those few changes in my story. I'm just warning you guys so ya don't panic on me and think it's a new character or something.**

 **That's about it on announcements...Big shout out to all of you squad members who've followed/favorited my story**

 **Iamperson111**

 **Iralu**

 **IvyLovesYou**

 **JcL107**

 **Juandres0705**

 **Maki is the boss**

 **Seren Luna**

 **Shadowseige101**

 **SweetCherrySherry**

 **UndeadEnding**

 **WritingSoul**

 **alycat63**

 **asgore**

 **beevaleria**

 **ckc14**

 **irondragonslayer61**

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 **leafstone**

 **skylightblaze**

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 **xXx Tigerblade xXx**

 **zxxphyr**

 **You guys/gals/mythical creatures- I'm totally a dragon in disguise -are the world! (I mean that figuratively; I know some of you are those sarcastic types that will take that literally and be all " _well duh considering we live on it_ " and- just...no. Okay...no. No one needs a smart a%#). Thank you SO MUCH for supporting me and my weird brain that conjures up weird stuff like this unannounced. You're all friggin' wicked awesome people who deserve... ... ... ... ... ... ... I DON'T KNOW! _SOMETHING_!  
**

 **~ mizu OUT!  
**


	9. Solving Riddles

**It's been awhile, yeah.**

 **This chappie goes out to** maryam24ish **whose follow reminded me that I've been neglecting this story...(several months ago)**

 **Sorry for still taking forever to update this...*scratches back of head***

* * *

Lucy and Seishin had regrouped for now, in a room far enough away from the orb that the dragon would not be swayed by it's pull, even in some freak accidental case. The blonde wasn't taking any chances.

"Alright!" Lucy mumbled aloud to herself. Standing from her crouched position on the floor, she began pacing, tapping her index finger absentmindedly against her lips. "We've got to find some clue as to what these ruins are. Easier said than done though... Also considering we have no trace of artifacts here that could provide information about this place- THE ORB!" she screeched in revelation startling her dragon companion from the light nap he had just fell into.

"There were words at the base of the orb that could help us figure out what this place is!" She voiced excitedly turning toward the drowsy-looking reptile.

Seishin momentarily eyed the doe-eyed celestial mage with minor annoyance before laying his head back down into his arms and drifting back into the nap he'd been enjoying.

All the better for Lucy.

She waited a couple minutes, shuffling her shoes and tapping intermittently on the wall to make sure he was completely asleep before ducking out of the room and heading back the way she'd came. Without Seishin as a giant nightlight, the trip back was much more complicated than it needed to be, but eventually the celestial mage made it to the room where the blue orb was still burning bright.

Squatting close to the artifact, Lucy ran her fingers over the ancient language etched into the base of the stone. The characters were both complex and artistic, mainly a bunch of confusing dips and swirls layered with quick abrasive strokes in intricate formations- it confused Lucy just having to look at it! The fact that it was much curvier than the average language didn't help either. Many of the letters also looked remotely similar to the other ones too!

Rubbing her index finger against her lips, Lucy analyzed the strokes of two similar looking prints. The second print seemed to be exactly the same as the first one with the exception that it had a few extra strokes than the latter. Could it be that it was a simple word formed from the same base as the letter? If this language had simple words that acted as alphabet letters also, deciphering this was going to take much more work than she'd assumed.

~.~.~

It had now been two painstaking hours since Lucy had started analyzing the strange language and the only words she'd managed to decipher was _'control'_ and _'war'_. It was odd because they were written with nearly the same character, yet they were two astoundingly different words with unrelated meanings.

"Maybe it has a symbolic relationship." quipped a bubbly voice that belonged to none other than Levy.

Lucy had contacted the small mage via lacrima- that she had stored in her pack for moments like this -after she managed to decipher the two words. Luckily, Levy was in the process of taking a short break and picked up Lucy's call right away.

"Because remember, in the ancient times war was mostly a means for early civilizations to acquire and control more land in order to expand their kingdoms." she continued. "Maybe because their both closely implied- conquest through war and war from conquest -with each other, it made sense to make the characters very similar."

A comfortable silence settled between the girls as they processed this. Lucy's thoughts slowly deviated to Seishin, who was probably sleeping peacefully down the hall still. Hopefully, he wouldn't wake and come searching for her- she didn't want a repeat of last time.

That's when the word _control_ briefly surfaced in her mind and Lucy shot up like a rocket.

"THAT'S IT!" she exclaimed, a startled Levy staring wide-eyed at her through the lacrima.

"I have an idea of what _'control'_ means, it's the same thing that happened with Seishin!"

"Seishin?" Levy wondered aloud as Lucy continued to babble in the background.

"He's a dragon. A smaller one I met when I got to the animal part of the triathlon, although now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be there."

The blonde celestial mage ignored her companion's hysterical wails of: "A DRAGON!? Lu-chan, are you all right!? Are you hurt?! Did it try to eat you?!" as she began to stick two and two together.

"Which means that all the other dragons can be influenced just like Seishin. So someone intends to control these dragons in order to initiate _war_ somewhere. And this orb is actually a dormant spell that will bring it all to fruition!" The blonde was literally screaming at this point.

Meanwhile, Levy looked highly confused on the other side of the Lacrima.

"Lu-chan what are you talk- Sorry Levy-chan!" The busty blonde interrupted, voice still near hysterical with all the new information she'd discovered.

"Magnolia might be in serious danger if I don't figure something out quick!"

She dashed over to the lacrima as she spoke and Levy watched the world from Lucy's stanpoint shake- like watching a video in first person while the camera person is running -as she lifted the lacrima from the ground and fumbled to turn it off.

Before the crystal blacked out Lucy could hear Levy advise one last thing: "I really think we should tell some-" then the screen went blank.

"Sorry Levy-chan," the blonde mumbled absentmindedly as she shoved the lacrima into her mini pack "But it's best if we not."

Slinging the little pink pack over her shoulders, the blonde took one last look at the orb and whirled back towards the door...

Only to find a speckled green face staring back at her.

* * *

 **Oh snap!**

 **Seishin's on the move again and we all know what happened last time when he came in contact with the orb...**

 **Remember to Follow, Favorite, and REVIEW people. FRIKKIN' REVIEW!**

 **~Mizu out! ;)**


	10. Breakdown!

**So the last chapter was a bit short, but that's okay! I did a double update to make up for that, and the fact that I haven't updated for like half a year...**

 **In my defense though, I just wasn't feeling it. I'm still not feeling it, but I hate when I'm reading an amazing story and people give up on it halfway through, so I don't want to be _one of those guys_. (although my story's not even good in the first place)**

 **I also haven't done my disclaimer in a while so:** I don't own Fairy Tail or its characters in any way, shape, or form nor do I wish to.

* * *

Natsu was on the last quarter of the river when the sensation hit him again. It was ten times more stronger than the last wave; he could feel his mind clouding as he tried to complete this last task.

Gray and Erza were not far behind, battling it out with several other guild members on the halfway stretch. Gray was relentlessly spitting offenses at him for pushing him off of his animal back at the track, but the goading was like white noise in the background.

The farther he swam, the dragon-slayer felt like his brain was collapsing, deflating in on itself and eventually his arms and feet stopped working.

Gray and Erza who had pulled in front of their comrades now, assessed him with mild concern. They were too far yet too reach him if he began to drift along with the current, but shockingly, even against the rough current, the ornery boy was not moving. He stood stock still in the river, water rushing at his waist with the force of a magic mobile being driven by a desperate Erza.

As the two mages drew closer, they noticed a drastic change in the temperature of the water, as if a fire was being lit from underneath. But they knew that wasn't the case. The closer they got, the more unbearable the heat was and Gray had to activate his ice magic to balance out the temperature.

And then they noticed the scales.

Large and red from the shoulders down and lightly sprinkled on his face were scales- varying shades of gold and orange and red, giving off the impression of a beautiful skin-like fire.

Dragonforce.

Gray frowned at the sight- who the hell peed in his cereal -but when the dragon-slayer turned to face them, he instantly knew it was something more than that. The light in his eyes was completely vanquished, a dead, sullen look in its place.

It didn't fit him at all.

Because of the clothing, the pair couldn't tell just _how_ much of his body was covered in scales, but by the looks of it, it was a pretty fair amount.

The normally bubbly dragon-slayer's face was wiped clean of any emotion; Gray wondered if he was even alive, probably standing by some sort of miracle.

The thought made him frown even more.

Natsu took a step forward.

Erza, ever-cautious, sunk her feet into the ground and summoned one of her swords at his lackluster response to their presence. Something was obviously wrong with him, and she wouldn't let him come close until he fixed his attitude.

"State your crisis Natsu." she demanded as he took another step towards them. The sound of her voice was authoritative as ever, but there was a slight edge to it as if she could sense his conscious's absence.

Gray maintained his position next to her, arms crossed, a near scowl gracing his features.

The salmon-haired male didn't respond, rather took another step forward. And another. And another. Until he was so close the scarlet haired mage could hold the tip of her blade to his throat, which she didn't hesitate in doing so. If he was gonna become a threat to herself and her nakama, she'd have to knock him out before he tried anything.

His serpentine eyes flicked to the blade that was at his throat then up to the scarlet-haired mage herself. They were too malevolent for her liking.

Keeping his eyes glued onto her, Natsu moved forward, blood beginning to pour from his skin as the blade sliced across his neck. Erza stared on in shock, frozen in place by her friend's actions.

But Gray was skeptical, and as the salmon-haired slayer glided past the scarlet beauty still frozen in shock, he himself, got into ice make position and summoned a cage. But before it even reached the ground, it was evaporated by a burst of fire.

Rebounding from his surprise the ice mage summoned his strongest ice make weapon: Excalibur, almost immediately and charged the dragon slayer with a flurry of attacks. He could feel his sword make contact here and there, but it was like the boy on the receiving end was immune to it. It didn't even phase him! He'd take one blow to the shoulder and reciprocate a fiery punch with the same hand!

By now, the damage had become visible, blood streaked down his arms and cheek, but nothing too serious. Gray wouldn't take it that far; not without reason. He only even took the sword out because he knew projectiles were futile- he'd just melt them all, and the idiot's fists looked particularly dangerous right now so he wanted to keep a decent distance. Only Excalibur would allow him to do that. And if Natsu melted it like he was currently doing, The ice-make mage could repair it on spot.

The only way to this dumbass was through fighting anyways. And with the thickness of those scales, he needed something that could deal more damage.

Gray was panting now, assessing the salmon-haired mage from a safe distance. The dickhead didn't even look winded.

He'd noticed throughout the fight that the dragon-slayer's focus was somewhere else. It was odd and he was curious, but asking wouldn't do anything; he'd seen how the guy reacted to Erza earlier. Talking would be in vain at this point.

A fist lodged into Gray's face and he cursed from the pain of it. Shit! He'd spaced out in a brawl and now he was paying for it. The force of the impact sent him spiraling back a few feet and now the water was carrying him away at a rapid pace. He tried to gain dominance over the water, but there were too many rocks, too much noise, and his attention was diverted from Natsu momentarily while he found a rock stable enough to latch onto.

When he looked back up the dragon-slayer was out of sight and Erza seemed to have recovered her wits.

The competition was the very last thing on his mind as he pulled himself out of the water. What he wanted to know now was:

 _What the hell is going on?_

* * *

 **BAM! Whatcha think about that! We gotta little bit of Gray/Natsu action going on and Erza froze up at some bad memories *cough cough Rob*.  
**

 **To elaborate: In the show he was a really kind guy whom Erza liked a lot, nakama if you would. And he died in front of her. When Natsu cut his throat on her sword, it was like Rob dying in front of her all over again. She envisioned a comrade dying. I didn't really feel like elaorating this in the story (it's pretty irrelevant) so I didn't.**

 **This concludes chapter nine.**

 **Don't forget to Follow, Fav, and Review!**

 **~mizu aozora signing out!~**


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